Clothes In The Fast Lane -- Seattle Design Veteran Makes The Scene Again With New Line Of Shirts

Several incarnations later, the man whose Britannia jeans made Seattle famous is designing Fast Clothing, a line of soft sweatshirts and tops for teen-age boys.

Dick Lentz, who helped found Britannia in the '70s, also gave Seattle Preline - the three-times-a-year event that draws hundreds of buyers from across the nation here to preview locally manufactured sportswear.

This is Preline week and the Fast Clothing label is among the clothing on display. Lentz, who admits he has that denim-indigo dye in his blood, says he will stay focused on a narrower slice of the youth market for now.

As for Preline, he said business has mushroomed since the early days, although the number of buyers has shrunk because of mergers and acquisitions.

``However, they all have bigger pencils and are bringing a bigger volume of dollars spent into the city. The clothing manufacturing business in total probably brings in $1 billion wholesale to the city and Preline accounts for about 50 percent of that.''

Lentz has been through the merger-and-acquisition experience himself. In the '80s he co-founded Union Bay, which later became Seattle Pacific Industries. He left S.P.I. in September after a disagreement with majority stockholders Brian Leung and Tony Lau. He refuses to talk about that dispute except to say that it will be settled in court.

Not one to stay on the sidelines, Lentz purchased 8-Ball Clothing from Russell Williams and renamed it Fast Clothing. He kept Williams as vice president in charge of finance, and hired several other people familiar to Preline buyers:

-- Carol Jones is general manager of merchandising and production. She was vice president of Seattle-born Code Bleu until it was purchased by Cherokee Sportswear and moved to Los Angeles.

-- Drew Mercklinghous is West Coast sales manager. He was formerly vice president in charge of sales at Heet, a division of Seattle Pacific Industries.

-- Ray Borde is East Coast sales manager. He was formerly with Bench and Seattle Pacific Industries.

The buyers may be seeing familiar faces this week, but they will not be seeing Linea Donna, the missy label that Seattle-based Generra Sportswear Co. introduced with fanfare during Preline in February.

Steve Miska, Generra's chief exeuctive officer, announced this week that the line is being discontinued.

``It was a difficult decision that we agonized over for weeks,'' he said. ``However, given the current retail conditions and the disappointing reception of the Linea Donna line . . . we have decided to discontinue the line and refocus and concentrate our efforts where we think they will be most effective.''

Tony Margolis, Generra's executive vice president of sales and marketing, said ``the orders weren't there.''

He added: ``We may have played our entry into missy apparel a little too conservative and straight compared to what we are in other markets where we're a little faster and trendier.'

``Fast'' is an important word, said June Hiroshima-Lentz, a former vice president of corporate merchandising for Federated Department Stores in New York City, now married to Lentz and helping design Fast Clothing.

``Young people today want clothes that are easy, simple and comfortable,'' Hiroshima-Lentz said. ``Fast Clothing is designed with that in mind. Kids are used to watching television. They want clothes that are visuals with lots of color and graphics.''

The Fast shirts have a sporty feel. They are cut loose and come in bright and neon colors. Price is seen as a critical part of the marketing strategy.

``Too often people price clothes too high for the young market,'' Lentz reasoned. ``They are designing in a vacuum. Kids that age can't afford $40 to $45 for a sweatshirt. These are priced to sell for under $30 retail.''

``Yuppies today aren't spending a lot of money on clothes,'' says Hiroshima-Lentz. ``They're buying houses, cars and housewares.''

Lentz estimates that sales will hit a wholesale volume of $10 million to $12 million his first year.

``Buyers have to be value conscious today,'' Lentz said. ``There are so many crises in business today. So many stores are in trouble. Buyers are working harder. People are watching their budgets. Those in the business have to be guerrilla fighters.

``It's not a time when you can sit back and rest on your laurels. That's why we are focusing on knit tops and not trying to be everything.''

Preline people

Buyers need a directory to keep up with the sportswear industry's game of musical chairs. Here's the latest on a couple of people with local name familiarity.

-- Mel Matsui has joined L.A. Gear. Matsui was the founder and later president of Seattle-based Code Bleu, which moved to California after being sold to Cherokee Sportswear.

-- Derek Federman is now president of Code Bleu. Federman was the founder of b.u.m. equipment, which was sold to Chauvin International, another large California-based group. After that sale Federman founded Excess Baggage, then joined Matsui at Code Bleu. The Bleu line is being continued under the Cherokee umbrella.