If you have a bit of time I encourage you to visit http://www.hoalen.com.
It's a brand I mentioned few years ago when they started. Since then they grew up ...
When I was in New York City few weeks ago I visited the Holister shop. Holister is one of the brands derivated from Abercrombie. The stores, the sites, the clothes ... everything is strongly driven by a real marketing strategy to create a customer experience.
When I visited http://www.hoalen.com/# I noticed several things: The music on the site (like the music in the Holister shop). And a "vintage" trend, also visible in Holister's fashion lines.
Hoalen has a "real" surf/watermen positionning, while Holister is absolutely not acting in the surf business (I never saw Holister in a surf shop, or any ads in a surf magazine, still it's been a long time since I read a US surf magazine). They have ambassadors (like Patagonia), a blog (like Patagonia) ... Well, it looks like these guys are taking the best practices and apply them ...
Today I really wonder who's the egg, who's the chicken and who started first on this path ...
I never tested Hoalen's clothes. I wonder if they are at the same level than Holister or Patagonia's one ... Will check that and will tell you.
