Royal Velvet Primed for Bed Bath & Beyond

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 10/29/2007 12:00:00 AM

New York — —

New York — The Royal Velvet brand will roll out across a range of product categories at all Bed Bath & Beyond stores starting in April 2008, according to the new owner of the brand, Iconix Brand Group.

Iconix will continue to work with Royal Velvet licensee Li & Fung, said Iconix chairman, president and ceo Neil Cole, while his company will devise and deploy “new marketing to take Royal Velvet hopefully up another notch.”

Under its previous ownership, Royal Velvet signed licensees for several home textiles categories. Cole referred only to Li & Fung, but did not address product categories specifically.

Speaking at the Wachovia Consumer Growth Conference, Cole commented on the other brands Iconix picked up in its Official Pillowtex acquisition last month:

Cannon: new considerations could include a retail-direct license to supplement current product licenses inlcuding the one with Li & Fung;

Fieldcrest: happy with the soft home program at retail-direct licensee Target;

Charisma: exploring proposals to dramatically expand beyond such placements as Bloomingdale's.

For Iconix, the Fieldcrest contract with Target is the top license in home furnishings – a new area for Iconix – and one of its leading retail-direct programs, Cole said. Of the 188 licensing agreements Iconix holds worldwide, most are in apparel-driven brands and just eight are direct to retailers.

Iconix evp David Conn said however, that retail-direct licenses are the company's preferred new growth model.

Iconix said it currently has about $600 million in contractually agreed revenues via its multi-year licenses.