Find Similar Products Like Nike Fresh Cuts 2 Piece Set Sizes 12m at Amazon
|
A fresh approach to club attire Jennifer Glaspie launched Chicago-based Aphira golfware to create apparel for the social golfer who wants to stand out on the green, not fit into the club. by Carolyn Schwaar When novice golfer Jennifer Glaspie was kicked off the green at a Florida golf club for wearing a sleeveless, collarless sweater, she didn’t recognise then that women’s golf apparel would become her life’s passion. From the runway to the fairway In 2000, Glaspie, a successful corporate business advisor at the honored Chicago-based firm of Baine & Co, started learning golf at the request of her boyfriend (now husband). But as her golf swing improved, this petite and style-savvy urbanite found her costume choices didn’t. “Golf apparel is so far behind the curve fashion-wise and the choices for the fashion-conscious golfer are limited,” she says. But it took a cool October morning with a tee time looming and “nothing to wear” that at long last pressed Glaspie to action. Convinced that there was outstanding potential in a high-end line of women’s golf costume that was trendy and comfortable yet sophisticated, Glaspie put her career on hold, and put her Kellogg MBA to use constructing a business plan to launch a chic line of women’s golf apparel. “I’ve always had a love of fashion, but I thought entering the competitory apparel industry would be just crazy,” recalls the 32-year-old Michigan native. However, exploration showed that, though the apparel industry is cut-throat, high-end niches such as resort ware and specialized sports apparel, have their own, more accessible and less competitory market. “I found numerous fashion-forward lines that were doing well, but the market surely wasn’t saturated, so everything pointed to ‘go,’ ” she says. Glaspie and her tradition-bucking designer, Cassy Clark, set out to manufacture golf apparel that was fun to wear, hip, and a little bit sexy, hoping versus hope that they would have a hit. And they did. Aphira debuted at the 2005 PGA Merchandise show in Florida. “There we were walking practically three miles back to our little booth past these big corporate booths,” recalls Glaspie. “We felt altogether overwhelmed, but from the beginning, humans started saying outstanding things. One women said ‘I love this line, this is my bestloved line here out of 1,000 exhibitors. It felt promising. We felt really, actually good.” The duo wrote dozens of orders at the show for their firstborn line. And when their primary clients received their shipment and loved it, they started out to think that they might just have something. “One client said persons where buying it right out of the box before she could get it on the rack,” says Glaspie. Now in it’s third year, Aphira is conventional in almost 150 golf shops in the United States, Europe, and Asia. But success didn’t come without a good deal of missteps. “I thought we had to be actually dissimilar when we introductory launched,” recalls Glaspie. The debut line was sexy and edgy with closefitting tops and tennis-length skorts. “But we’ve toned that down a bit as we’ve gone on.” The shift in style reflects the company’s exploration into just who’s buying their stylish line, which in some markets is genuinely retirees in there 50s and 60s. “Nike and Addidas design sportswear for the athletic golfer,” says Glaspie. “Our client is more socialite than athlete. She doesn’t play four-times a week, she plays with her girlfriends on the weekends, and she’s someone who’s always put together.” Like a lot of entrepreneurs, Glaspie is owner, marketer, sales rep and even model. “One time at a meeting with the proshop proprietor at the Ravinia Green Country Club I ran and put on a pair of shorts to show the client how they fit,” says Glaspie. Every piece in the line is made in her size for product testing. “I need to try it all on. I swing a club and I walk around it in. I’m a golfer and I know the functionality that the garment needs to have.” The Aphira line is made exclusively in America. The fabric is habit dyed and shipped to a factory on Chicago’s north side for assembly. For now, Aphira apparel is only available in golf stores, and that’s just fine with Glaspie. “We need to stay concentered on the golf market. We know each dollar invested will be a few dollars return in the golf market but it would take too much capitol to break into the more prominent apparel marketing market.” Although you won’t see Aphira in section stores, you may get a glimpse of it on the general Golf Channel reality show The Big Break: Ladies Only, which will feature Aphira apparel on golfer Valeria Ochoa this spring. And the new Hollywood film “Who’s Your Caddy?,” billed as “an urban take on the comedy golf movie” features a sexy reputation wearing Aphira allround the film. The chancy career hop from guiding the strategic growth of Fortune-500 companies to making golf skorts has unquestionably remunerated off, says Glaspie. “It has just been a whirlwind but I’m unquestionably having fun. In consulting I had peeks and valley and good weeks and bad weeks, but when it’s your own company your highs are genuinely high and lows are in truth low. Everything takes on so much more importance when it’s your own.” ### Callout or boxed item: Sidebar: Just take a look at internationally televised women’s golf tournaments like the Lexus Cup where teams lead by Annika Sorenstam and Grace Park ditched the masculine polo top for trendy architect golfwear to project a fun and fashionable effigy for women’s golf. And younger players, such as tank-top sporting Michelle Wie, are bringing their young complex mental states and free spirit with them to the green — and this includes their fashion statements. “There’s a lot more younger people playing the sport,” says Glaspie. And with youth, she says, comes new ideas that buck the traditions and set a new style. |
