For made-to-measure apparel company INDOCHINO, 2022 is going to be a big year of expansion and growth.
The retailer plans to continue to open more showrooms across North America and expand into women’s wear while growing its men’s wedding apparel.
Drew Green, President and CEO of INDOCHINO, said the launch into women’s wear is one of the biggest announcements the company has ever made.
“It’s just seven years now that we entered into retail and really took the brand from being a niche brand to a global brand and every month I get asked when are you going to launch women’s, when are you going to launch women’s,” he said.
“And prior to COVID we actually had plans for that year. We were doing a lot of different testing to bring it to market and then of course COVID hit and we just didn’t feel like the timing was right. So we pulled back. But this is just something I’m really massively proud of and we think we’re going to have a lot of demand for it because it’s something women especially have been requesting for years and years and years.
“We know that many women are looking for well-tailored custom clothing that doesn’t cost a fortune and there simply isn’t a custom women’s wear brand comparable to INDOCHINO on the market. We’ve been looking to fulfill this need for years but wanted to make sure that the timing was right, we could do it right, and the brand was ready, so I’m delighted to share the news that we will be introducing our first women’s wear collection next year.”
The company has 79 locations in North America and could eclipse 100 in 2022. The company plans to expand into new markets such as New Mexico, Kentucky and Alabama, while continuing to increase its presence in prominent existing markets such as New York and California. The new stores will be in both standalone INDOCHINO showrooms and Nordstrom shops, as the brand continues to grow its partnership with the luxury department store.
“It’s one year at a time,” said Green. “We are extremely proud that during COVID we were bold enough to say look the world has changed. Things aren’t happening like they used to – weddings or people getting together, going to work, all those things – but it’s going to come back and we want to be prepared for when it does come back,” said Green.
“So we went from 52 showrooms at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020 to 79 showrooms as of July 1, 2021. And the response has been incredible. A lot of our showrooms continue to be sold out on the weekends. Growing significantly. As we laid plans for 2022, we’ll exceed 100 showrooms in total for the year.
“And as I look out to the years ahead, there’s no reason why we can’t get to 200 and 300 showrooms but we just want to be pragmatic and take it one year at a time.”
About 80 per cent of the company’s online sales are in the U.S., about 17 per cent in Canada and the rest is global.
“We are only in North America from a store perspective but people order from all over the world every day,” explained Green, adding the company does have plans to expand into other global markets but once the pandemic ends.
“I look at Australia, Japan, the UK as sort of my three primary international markets that we want to expand into. We’ve had literally hundreds of conversations on partnerships and other ways to get into the markets from a showroom perspective and so it will happen. But we’ve got to see the pandemic come to a finale here before we invest in it from there.”
The company said it will also focus on increasing market share of men’s wedding apparel in 2022. This follows a sharp increase in sales of custom wedding attire in 2021, with year-to-date wedding appointments 79 per cent higher than the company’s highest benchmark.
In November alone, wedding appointments increased 141 per cent over 2019, signaling that INDOCHINO’s wedding business will continue to build into the new year, said the retailer, adding that this correlates with reports that 2022 is set to be the biggest year for weddings since 1984 and the brand is looking to capitalize on the surge, with a goal to be widely recognized as the experts in men’s wedding attire.
INDOCHINO is introducing more fabrics and product features for grooms and groomsmen. Sales of tuxedos, a mainstay of formal weddings, increased by 93 per cent in 2021 compared to 2019 and, launching in 2022, customers will have the ability to design any suit fabric as a tuxedo. Customers can also expect an expanded assortment of its most popular ongoing fabric collections, offering wedding customers even more choice throughout the year.
