Town & Country gets juvenile feet wet

Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 4/22/2002 12:00:00 AM

NEW YORK —

Building on its bath business, Town & Country Living launched at April market its first fully coordinated collection of juvenile bath products.

Dubbed H2O Trends for Kidz, the new line is an off-shoot of Town & Country's H2O brand for the bath within the Bath By Town & Country division.

The new juvenile line features four colorful animal characters — a green frog, a purple hippo, a yellow duck and a blue dolphin.

"Juvenile bath has had some success on a sporadic basis but nobody has pulled a whole program together like this offering by Town & Country," Frank Scalice, executive vp, told HTT. "We think the characters are very cute and on target, the bright colors are very appealing to the target ages of 3 to 8 years old, and we think it's a collection that can sell anywhere [from mass to department stores]. This is a very special program that can retail anywhere."

Each character-themed collection coordinates with a two-piece towel set; a hooded towel; appliques for the tub; a five-piece soft molded plastic bath accessories kit that includes a puppet wash mitt; and one of two panel print shower curtains that feature all the four characters — but only one is equipped with netting pockets for storage of the accessories.

The majority of the line is imported from China.

Town & Country also created special packaging for the line, using clear plastic carry bags for the accessories kit.

Price points include $9.99 and $11.99 for both shower curtain types, $9.99 for the hooded towel, $7.99 for the two-piece towel set and $12.99 for the accessories kit.