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Baselayers: Skins gets in deep
Compression baselayer brand Skins is replacing its popular Sport series, and launching a new point of sale unit for retailers. David Pittman reports
From September, compression baselayer brand Skins is withdrawing its Sport and She ranges, which will be replaced with the new A200 series.
The gradient compression clothing range has been revamped after five years on the market to be repackaged as the A200 range. A200 is a range of 17 male and female-specific tops, tights and sleeves, plus six in youth sizes. It includes thermal tops and tights.
While retaining many of the proprietary features from the previous ranges, such as gradient compression, muscle wrapping seams and UV sun protection, Skins says the A200 takes new design direction from the recently released A400 line.
Improvements to the range include silicone grippers on the bottom hem of all tops, the removal of centre front seams on tights, a new soft airflow mesh to improve ventilation and add extra stretch, improved waistbands and denser seam stitches.
The products will appeal predominantly to those wanting their first experience of technical compression wear.
For men, they’ll be sports lovers who are all-rounders, playing football or rugby once a week, or doing regular 5-10k runs and going to the gym. Amongst women, A200 products will predominantly be bought by gym users and occasional runners. More ‘hardcore’ sports and fitness enthusiasts will naturally gravitate toward Skins’ premium A400 range, it says.
For the women’s A200 range, Skins has continued steps forward in both fit and styling. Last year, the brand introduced two new women’s body shape styles, ‘A’ and ‘H’, while this range has been designed by a graduate of New York’s prestigious Parsons New School for Design.
Skins will also be introducing new women’s colours every six months. Women’s A200 launch colours are black, black/pink and black/blue, while the men’s A200 range is available not only in Skins iconic black/yellow colour wave, but also in white/titanium. Alongside this change in its product line-up, Skins is rolling out a new high-tech, interactive, fitting station worldwide.
The tablet technology-based unit incorporates automatic measurement of a customer’s weight and height and then enables them to add further measurements, such as chest and calf, manually via an attached tape measure.
Then, users can select one of 12 sports they’re interested in and are subsequently shown which Skins range or product is best suited to them. Users are able to interact and rotate each garment 360 degrees and detailed specifications regarding whichever product is selected accompany the images.
Ian Reid, Skins marketing manager, says: “This is the first time that such an advanced unit for sports clothing retailing has been developed. We anticipate that any strategic placement of this unit will generate a richer, more in-depth consumer experience and, as a direct result, a significant uplift in Skins range sales.”
