Lorna Jane facts for kids
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Headquarters at Eagle Farm, Brisbane
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| Private | |
| Industry | Retail |
| Founded | 1990 |
| Founder | Lorna Jane Clarkson and Bill Clarkson |
| Headquarters |
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Australia
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Key people
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Lorna Jane Clarkson (Founder & Chief creative officer) Bill Clarkson (CEO) |
| Products | Athletic apparel |
| Revenue | AUD$ 200 million (2014) |
| AUD$ 19.6 million (2013) | |
| Total equity | AUD$ 500 million (estimated) (2016) |
| Owners |
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Number of employees
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1,800 (2015) |
Lorna Jane is an athletic apparel retailer with headquarters in Brisbane, Australia and regional offices in the United States, Singapore, China, and New Zealand. It was founded in 1990 by Lorna Jane Clarkson and her husband Bill Clarkson. The women’s activewear brand has 134 stores across Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and Singapore. They also have licensee stores in New Caledonia, Mexico, Europe, Dubai and Malaysia.
Contents
Products
Lorna Jane produces and sells a wide range of garments, including tights, sports bras, tops, shorts, pants, jackets and hoodies, shoes, and various accessories. Many items use the company's own moisture-wicking four-way stretch fabric, "LJ Excel". Others incorporate compression fabrics and "power mesh" panels. A Marie Claire article called Lorna Jane out as one of the 6 best sustainable sports brands on the market.
Limited edition ranges and pieces
The company releases limited edition ranges and pieces such as maternity ranges and 'Little Miss' for babies and young children.
Love Bead
Every Lorna Jane garment has a small heart-shaped bead sewn into it somewhere; a message to consumers that the garment is made "with love". Garment styles are named after Lorna Jane team members, with one team member saying "Seeing your name pop up on a monthly style sheet is as exciting as waking up on Christmas morning!"
Sizing
Garments were originally produced in sizes up to "L", and in 2014, Lorna Jane introduced an "XXS" and "XL" size. Beyond that, Clarkson has said she had no plans to produce "plus size" garments, saying that there was no demand from her customer base and that the brand's previous ventures in this direction had been unsuccessful; "If my customer wants bigger sizes, I will absolutely accommodate. But we have tried it and not sold it."
In 2015, Australian consumer organisation Choice evaluated a pair of Lorna Jane tights alongside equivalent garments from six competitors at a range of price points. The evaluation found that the Lorna Jane tights did not fare as well in some tests as some of their much cheaper competitors, although a textiles expert praised them for their construction and they did score better in stretch, stain and stitching tests.
Awards
Lorna Jane has won a total of 13 design awards, numerous marketing awards and in 2017 was named the Marie Claire Readers Choice for Best Athleisure Brand.
Production
Lorna Jane's website reiterates the brand's commitment to sustainable practices including production and sourcing. They have one principal source of production that they have been working with for more than 25 years.
The company prides itself for providing superior conditions for its factory workers, and claims that as few as three workers fail to return from Chinese New Year each year, when the norm for factories in the region is "hundreds". Workers refer to the factories as "Lorna Land". Lorna Jane production is WRAP Gold Certified but because they did not respond to their survey, the 2016 Ethical Fashion Guide produced by Baptist World Aid Australia rated Lorna Jane as "D" grade for not completing the survey. Executive marketing and e-commerce manager Jessie Dean told Australian broadcaster the ABC that "It is important to us that our manufacturing source reflects who we are as a brand and our active living philosophy. We continually work to ensure that our workplace code of conduct protects the welfare of every employee and their environment." Clarkson says she would prefer to be still manufacturing in Australia, but the closure of Australian fabric mills and a lack of government support for the clothing industry made that impossible to sustain.
Men's wear
Despite being asked "two or three times a week", Clarkson said she has no plans to expand into activewear for men. In another interview, she expressed her personal preference as "I like men to wear their old footy shirts and triathlon shorts."
History
Foundation
Founder Lorna Jane Clarkson (née Smith) was a dental technician and part-time aerobics instructor who was dissatisfied with the workout clothes available to women in the late 1980s and started making her own. Her designs proved popular with her students, who asked her to start making clothes for them too. In 1988, she decided to start making clothes as her full-time occupation. When she and her partner, Bill Clarkson, experienced difficulty finding stores interested in carrying the range, they decided to retail it themselves In 1990, they opened their first store, in an upper floor of Brisbane's Broadway on the Mall shopping centre.
By 2000, the business required a larger factory, and to fund this expansion, the Clarksons sold their home and bought a building in Fortitude Valley for $465,000. They refurbished it and within two years, the value of the property had appreciated to $4 million, which the Clarksons were able to use as collateral for further growth.
The company logo is three rhombuses, each with two of its opposing corners curved. The shape represents a stylised "L" and "J" joined together.
Expansion and diversification
The company was able to use the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 to its advantage. Rather than waiting for economic conditions to improve, Lorna Jane continued its expansion by taking opportunities for leases in favourable locations that would have been unavailable to the company in a stronger climate. This strategy led to the company's biggest growth period.
In 2010, private equity firm CHAMP Ventures purchased a 40% stake of the company.
In response to the 2010–11 Queensland floods, Lorna Jane initiated a charity programme where the company would allow customers to exchange used activewear (of any brand) for a store credit. The used clothing collected would then be donated to the Salvation Army. Originally intended to run for a week in mid 2011, the "Swap Shop" became a permanent fixture and was still running in 2017. In that time, customers had brought in over 45,000 garments for the business to pass on to charity.
Following a year-long consultancy with the Wharton Business School and the University of Queensland into strategies for entering the US market, March 2012 saw the opening of the first US store in Malibu. At a time when ecommerce was replacing traditional bricks-and-mortar retailing, Lorna Jane adopted the unconventional approach of investing more in physical stores. By mid-2013, a new Lorna Jane store was opening in California every three weeks. The Clarksons chose California as the brand's initial entry point to the US because they found the active and outdoor way of life there to be similar to Australia.
In August 2012, Lorna Jane launched a fitness tracking app.
By 2013, the company took a 9.4% share of the entire athletic clothing industry in Australia. Consolidated revenue for 2012-13 was set to exceed $110 million. Annualised growth was sustained above 40% for the five years between 2008 and 2013. In the same year, the company introduced the "Active Living Rooms", with the first one opening at the Gasworks development in Teneriffe, Queensland, and also launched a fashion-forward range named "Uniquely" that further blurred the line between activewear and casualwear.
2014
In early 2014, the Clarksons and CHAMP considered the possibility of an initial public offering, with bankers pitching exit strategies for the private equity firm. The float was reportedly aimed at returning $400 million to the business owners. Analyst Brian Walker suggested that the motivation for the float might have been a specific timeframe within which CHAMP had to return funds to investors, or that CHAMP had predicted a peak in Lorna Jane's rate of growth and were opting to exit at this point. When reports of a float started appearing in the financial press in February, neither the Clarksons nor CHAMP would comment. However, on 19 March, CEO Bill Clarkson confirmed for the Financial Review that an IPO had been considered and rejected. In May, the Financial Review reported that CHAMP's board scrapped the idea of an IPO after receiving at least five expressions of interest from large US businesses in the fitness industry and appointed Credit Suisse to negotiate a sale instead. Over the next four months, they received interest from over forty prospective investors, including Under Armour and Foot Locker. European private equity firm Permira emerged as the leading contender by mid-September. Ultimately, however, the Clarksons withdrew from a sale when they considered the implications of losing their personal control of the brand. They opted to retain a controlling interest, and CHAMP agreed to maintain its level of investment.
In March 2014, the company partnered with department store chains in Australia and the US to start carrying the brand. In Australia, the partnership was with David Jones, and included the "Uniquely" line in in-store concessions. In the US, the partnership was with Nordstrom, and additionally included representation in one Nordstrom store in Canada and another in Puerto Rico.
In July 2014, a Change.org petition started by Megan Sauer asked Lorna Jane to add larger sizes to its range. The petition attracted 2,705 signatures, and resulted in the brand adding a new size, XL. This size falls between Australian women's clothing sizes 14 and 16, when the average Australian woman is size 16.
In August 2014, the company ventured into publishing, with a six-weekly magazine titled Active Living available through its stores. The initial print run was 75,000 copies.
In August 2014, Lorna Jane began registering its designs for garments and accessories with Intellectual Property Australia as a pre-emptive step to help protect them against copyright infringement.
See also
- List of companies named after people
