K-Swiss Launching Skate Division

mike lewis

• July 06 2009
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In 1966 K-Swiss, based in Westlake Village, California, turned the footwear industry on its head when it introduced the first all leather tennis shoe. Now, the publicly traded company is hoping to leverage its 43 years of experience in the game to launch into the skateboard industry.

K-Swiss has hired pro skater Greg Lutzka on as its new creative director of skate, to oversee the development of the division and its initial Spring 2010 line, as well as helping the brand bridge skate’s notoriously high bastions for outsiders.

“We know that the price of entry is a real commitment and we’re prepared to do that,” says K-Swiss Executive Vice President David Nichols. “Skateboarding has always been something that has inspired a lot of the people here. We’ve always been a Southern California company and there have been a lot of skaters here over the years and we’re going to bring in new people as this evolves.”

The brand has already formed a skate-specific design team to collaborate with Lutzka and other incoming athletes and will be implementing last year’s award-winning MiSOUL™ midsole technology as well as K-Swiss’s proprietary three-piece toe construction, which they say “is ideally suited for ollie protection.”

K-Swiss plans on building the skate division from the base up according to Nichols: “We feel we can bring something fresh and sustainable to the marketplace with a grassroots approach and the right mix of talent. We have a history and a real belief in the value of the [grassroots approach]…There will be all different components from a trade program, to community building events, athletes, both pro and amateurs, social media, viral stuff - we want to add value to the whole thing.”

Despite the company’s extensive global retail base, distribution of the new line will focus on core skate retailers. “We think it’s important to pay our dues,” he adds. “We’ll absolutely be partnering the line and key pieces of it will only be available to the core specialty channel.”

When asked what he’d tell a retailer wondering what’s compelling about the new line and if K-Swiss is just seeking to cash in on skateboarding’s popularity, Nichols says that they’re: “a company that has been making footwear in Southern California for over 40 years, that’s partnering with the best in the industry as well as the kid on the street to do something new. We’ll be here for a long time. We know that certainly in this industry, most things new are rejected initially and we know we’ll have to earn our spot at the table.”

Greg Lutzka. Photo courtesy K-Swiss.

The first and biggest partnership K-Swiss is tying its kite to is Greg Lutzka, who signed a five-year deal with the brand with an option to extend for an additional five, will be overseeing the brand’s direction from his new office at K-Swiss headquarters. According to his agent, Todd Hahn, Lutzka will “have a ton of input on the shoes, the team, and who the TM is. He’ll have quite a bit of input on who handles the core sales team, overall brand direction, and making sure that everybody that’s hired and brought in place has passion for the brand, the industry, and their work.”

While many companies are scaling back their product lines, K-Swiss felt it was a great time to expand into this sector. “It’s an evolving time for our company,” explains Nichols. “Now that we’ve gotten our brand to the heights we have, we have the resources to do the things we’ve always wanted to be able to do. We really now have the talented people in place and we thought we could stretch our core competencies into some new areas.”

K-Swiss Director of Public Relations and Events Jennifer MacFarland says that the rest of the staffing decisions, including brand director, will be announced shortly and that a team roster and product specs will follow soon thereafter. Things are definitely ramping up quickly as K-Swiss will be exhibiting its initial line at Agenda on July 22.

While Lutzka has been on the Globe team for most of his career, Hahn says the break was an harmonious one.  “We were looking to expand Greg’s reach and be the face of [Globe] because we kind of felt he was emerging as that guy for that brand. Globe respectfully disagreed and said they have different channels of marketing they want to go down. They said they’d be more than happy if we could find a better home for Greg and amicable for letting us out of the deal.”

Hahn says that he and Lutzka are most excited about the long-term view that K-Swiss is taking and the level of partnership that they’re committing to in an effort to get it right. “This is the first true partnership I’ve ever seen with a brand where they’re willing to invest for ten years and they have the backend to really create a division,” says Hahn.  “They’ve got zero debt, they’ve got cash in the bank. It’s basically privately held because all of the original owners hold most of the equity in the company so they’re not making knee jerk decision on the stock price. What really excited me is that they’re not thinking two, three or even five years down the road. They want to have something that moves the needle in ten years. You don’t hear about that very often anymore, especially with something that’s publicly traded.”

While not part of its skate line, the Bristel High Elephant shows the stylistic road K-Swiss designers have been traveling.