Ray’s Apparel was a major player in the action sports softgoods world. But on Monday, the call went out. More than 60 employees of Ray’s Apparel and its Split clothing label were given the bad news—the company was closing in 60 days.

“Rays Apparel has always been a very profitable company,” explains Ray’s Apparel president Jim Stark. “We got into mid-2008, probably about May, and started running into the same economic woes and problems that our competitors have been having. And for the past four or five months, we’ve been losing money. And it certainly looks that way for the balance of the year.”

Stark is refreshingly candid about running a business. “We’re not in business to lose money,” he says, “and we started really looking into 2009 and even as far as 2010, and we really didn’t see anything that was going to change in the economy, or change in the credit market, or change dramatically in the banking industry, that was going to allow us to turn this around in a reasonable amount of time. So we made the decision to close Ray’s Apparel.”

Stark’s not planning on cutting-and-running. He explains that this will take several months, as they are still shipping Split. “We have to slowly and methodically wrap up our business.” He’s frank about the state of the business because he doesn’t want to screw anyone over—particularly, the 60-odd loyal employees, some of whom have been working for Ray’s apparel for twenty years. “The reason we gave the notice to our employees when we did was to give them as much time as possible to find other jobs, and to help them get other jobs.”

“I got the call on Monday,” says Split’s flagship team rider Corey Duffel. “Split was done. We had a video shipping that day, too.” Split’s promo, Demons In The Attic, would have been their first skate video in years, with footage from Duffel, Don Ngyuen, Terrell Robinson, Jason Adams, JT Aultz, and more. “My first thought was ‘all right, we can’t let that video ship,’” says Duffel. “I’ve got a full part in there. I’d want to use it to find a new sponsor.”

Split Team Manager Brian Young was the bearer of bad news to his team. “I guess they had a couple buyers, but neither could get the loans needed.” Unfortunate, but hardly surprising, given the state of the economy.

“I know that Split mens’ was doing really well.”

When asked about the long-standing rumors of Ray’s being linked to One Distribution’s KR3W and Supra, and Ray’s building-mates 686, Stark was upset—but only because he didn’t want his bad news to taint those brands.

“Just to quell some of these crazy rumors, Ray’s Apparel is a complete standalone entity. Contrary to these crazy, idiotic rumors that are out there, the other businesses are doing extremely well, and they’re doing it
in a very difficult economic environment. I think my friends at KR3W and Supra are doing phenomenal. And 686 is having the best year since I’ve met them. So it’s very disturbing and unsettling when an unfortunate situation with my company gets potentially linked to some other companies that are doing very well.”

There has been a lot of movement around the Ray’s Apparel brands. In early September, Ray’s Ambiguous brand experienced a walkout of sorts. Designers, marketers, teamriders, and others left to launch a new apparel company called Comune. Weeks later, the Ambiguous brand was sold off to Split’s founder David Patri and Ambiguous’ international distributor, Life Distribution.

So while Ray’s Apparel is closing its doors, the future of the Split brand is still up in the air. “I’m fairly confident that someone will purchase the brand, or continue with the brand,” says Stark.” Because it’s still a very good, viable brand, with certain characteristics that are doing very well.” They are still looking for prospective buyers, and will be shipping Split product into 2009, and possibly longer.

“I mean, we’ve got 50,000 videos, ready to go,” says Young.

As for Stark himself, he hasn’t yet thought through the coming months. “My focus right now is to wrap this up, the right way. And once I’m done with that, I’m gonna sit back and think about that. I won’t be staying idle, I can promise you that. I’m not an early retiree.”

Tags: ambiguous, corey duffel, Kr3w, rays apparel, split, supra

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 15th, 2008 at 9:12 am and is filed under FEATURES. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.