Poleci: architect of California's fashion landscape

Bobbin, August, 1998 by Julie McElwain

If the world could be broken up into distinct, geographic fashion regions, the boundaries would have been marked long ago - with Paris perceived as the capital of couture, Milan and New York touted as fashion design centers, and California viewed as an amusing, youthful counterculture of bathing suits, surf wear, bucolic resort wear and bohemic sportswear.

Yet in the past decade California designers have begun scrambling over those boundaries like zealots with their own manifest destiny, changing the perception of what California fashion really means among savvy retailers and style conscious consumers. No company has had a hand in changing the California fashion landscape - and its image - more than Poleci, a hip, Los Angeles-based contemporary design house, whose collection of chic women's wear graces the racks of upscale specialty and department stores throughout the United States and the world.

Last October, the company's reign as one of the West Coast's leading apparel manufacturers was officially and loudly recognized when Poleci's co-designers Janice Levin-Krok and Tom Nguyen won the 1997 California Designer of the Year award. Alanna Chaffin, communications director for the CaliforniaMart, which co-sponsors the award, sums up Poleci's win as a reflection of the retail and editorial buzz that the company has generated in the past couple of years. "Poleci's quality of merchandise and design innovation is outstanding, and represents California fashion at its best," she points out simply.

Sheri Drobnick, merchandise manager of better sportswear for Los Angeles-based buying office Directive's West, echoes those sentiments - plus a few more. "They're the two most talented designers around," Drobnick states emphatically. "They're consistently on track with their designs, and their use of great and unusual fabric sets them apart and has allowed them to make a name for themselves."

Indeed, kevin-Krok and Nguyen are experts in concocting designs that are sleekly sophisticated, including their signature trim slip dresses, low-slung pants, extra-long blazers and tiny tank tops. For the Fall II season, Poleci's offerings are par for the course: body conscious dresses and long, skinny trouser-influenced skirts done in sedate solid or pin-stripe gray or black lightweight wool/Lycra[R] spandex; buttery lamb leather jackets and skirts; bias cut tops that mix matte jersey and mesh; wool/Lycra sweaters peppered lightly with sequins; and elegant jackets with detachable faux fur collars.

The clothes are comfortable, and yet maintain an enviable fashion-forward spark and contemporary look that have landed the Poleci label in the closets of such Hollywood trendsetters as Heather Locklear, Julie Brown and Courtney Cox. Similarly, the company's unerring style has made it a darling among the fashion press, eliciting editorial pages in everything from Cosmopolitan and Marie Claire to Vogue and Glamour.

Yet for all the recent attention and accolades, Poleci is scarcely an overnight success story. In fact, the seed for the company was planted 10 years ago, when Levin-Krok and her sister Diane Levin moved to Los Angeles from their native South Africa and founded a contemporary line bearing the brand Tokai. Three years and countless styles later, the sisters discarded the name in favor of Poleci, and brought on Nguyen to help LevinKrok shoulder the design responsibility, while Levin turned her skills to fine-tuning the business side of the operation.

That combination of raw design talent and entrepreneurial acumen has worked, racking up sales of reportedly more than $10 million for the company and a growth rate that, according to Levin, leapfrogged 60 percent last year alone.

The company's divisions (which now total five) have increased as speedily as its fortunes. In addition to its core Poleci collection, the company introduced a sweater division last year for summer 1998. They followed that success by launching a leather grouping and a classics collection this past April, which will hit stores this fall. The leather collection will be offered only for fall deliveries, while the classics division will feature garments year-round as staple items. "Retailers will be able to select our most popular jackets, pants and skirts in six or seven different colors," Nguyen explains.

Most recently, Poleci has introduced a dress division. The company is on record as saying it expects the dress division will generate 20 percent of Poleci's sales the first year, thanks to strong demand among consumers for day dresses. And, already on the drawing board for spring '99 is a casual sportswear line, which will tap into the nation's burgeoning casual lifestyle trend. "We'll be going after the same customer - who is basically the fashion-conscious, sophisticated woman ... who may want a more casual way of dressing, maybe for the weekend," says Levin-Krok.

Retailers and consumers can expect the new line to maintain the Poleci trademark sophistication, yet in looser, perhaps more fluid silhouettes. Nguyen also adds that the line's fabric "will not be as fancy [as that of other divisions], but it will be of good quality."