Background: Venroy was created by myself (Sean Venturi) and Theo Smallbone in the summer of 2011/12. This coming spring season will see Venroy stocked in 30 selected stores throughout Australia.
Growth curve: The reaction we got to our first season ‘Testing the Water’ was much stronger then we expected. Since then we have opened an office in Los Angeles to spearhead our northern hemisphere sales and marketing whilst maintaining our Sydney office as Venroy HQ. Launching with three accounts in 2011, Venroy is now stocked in David Jones and has more than 60 international stockists with new stores located in the USA, Japan, Canada and Spain. Venroy’s largest United States stockists are Fred Segal, Ron Herman, Kitson, American Rag and W Hotels.
Current picture: We are not looking to grow the number of stockists in Australia but would rather build volume into the accounts we currently have. Expansion continues in the USA following the recent success at the Miami Swim Show and we are now preparing for The Project in Vegas. We have also recently expanded into Japan where Venroy is now stocked in Oshmans. We are also launching our S12 collection ‘Divide and Conquer’ this September. As part of this, we are running 10 prints through our core range and 10 solids and we are also launching our Versa short. The hybrid concept of the short is to really blur the difference between a casual dress short and a swimshort. We have developed a fabric for this short which suits a dress short but remains suitable for swimming. We are also launching our basic Venroy Singlet in five colours ways.
Future forecast: Distribution is obviously very important to our growth strategy. At the moment we have our Sydney and Los Angeles based offices handling all sales in house and the next phase of our sales growth strategy is to start talking to distribution partners in new markets. Collaborations are also something that we want to continue to look at. Recently, we have worked with the Tao and Marquee hospitality groups in Vegas which resulted in hugely positive results, particularly in brand awareness so this is something we are looking to repeat.
Divide and Conquer Spring Summer 12/13 Collection.