Elevations, a fashion catalog for tall women, enters its second year
THIS IS A TALL TALE that’s completely true.
When she was growing up and playing college and pro basketball, 6-foot-3-inch Marlene Henderson was frustrated with the frumpy selection of tall women’s clothes. “They weren’t stylish and they weren’t a good fit,” she says.
Now, Henderson is addressing that problem with her own catalog company, Elevations.
Last month, the basketballer and her staff of five were planning to drop between 12,000 and 15,000 copies of the company’s third book. The first catalog came out in November 1999, the second in June 2000. Both were sent to a list of 8,000.
Last November and December, Elevations sold $10,000 worth of merchandise. Projected sales are $75,000 for this year and double that for next. Henderson says revenue is currently split evenly between the print catalog and the company’s Web site (www.designelevations.com).
Henderson, 30, has been designing and sewing her own clothes since age 16. After majoring in business and minoring in fashion design and merchandising at the University of San Francisco, she played professional basketball in Europe. She returned to the United States to get an MBA at Georgia’s Clark Atlanta University, then went to work as a marketing manager for the Olympic sportswear division of Terry Manufacturing in Atlanta. She left in 1997 and started designing her own line in 1998 (her book includes other designers).
Why a catalog? “I felt that I could reach a national and then an international base,” Henderson explains. She already mails overseas, mainly to Europe and Australia. She is planning to open her first Elevations store next spring in Oakland, CA.
The first two books were 16 pages long; the third will be 20 pages. Clothes sizes range from 4 through 20; prices run between $30 for high-quality T-shirts and tank tops to $350 for higher-end suits. The average order is $150. Other items include pants, dresses, skirts and evening wear.
Henderson began her business with a small list rented from a broker she found on the Internet, but her effort didn’t get a good response: “I got a lot of people saying, `Take me off the list, I’m five-two.'” She is having more success with her own file, compiled from people who signed up at her Web site and from sources such as Shop at Home. She estimates that the response rate is about 5%.
Elevations’ demographic skews to its customers’ height – her clients, who include this information in their grateful letters to the company, range from 5 feet 8 inches to 6 feet 6 inches. It’s also aimed at college-educated women anywhere from 18 to 65 years old. “I can’t say I’ve got more on one end or the other,” Henderson claims. “Women between 45 and 65 are a little more fashionable than they once were.”
Henderson has a perfect marketing tool in her own life and activities. “My first customers were my family and friends,” she notes. She coaches basketball and is otherwise active in the San Francisco sports scene, where she meets potential customers. Her models include two basketball Olympians: Leone Patterson of the New Zealand team, and Yolanda Griffith, who plays for the American team and the Sacramento Monarchs. Griffith was named the WNBA’s most valuable player last year.
“Elevations clothing has style and practicality, which means I feel comfortable and stylish when I go to work,” Patterson said in an e-mail from the Sydney Olympics. “For a tall person, that’s hard to find in women’s clothing.”
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