IRVINE — If a sport becomes popular, can its fashion be far behind?
Volleyball apparel is no exception, with the sport a hot act on Southern California's beaches. Just as surfing, skateboarding and snow-boarding all have created their own apparel, so has volleyball.
Since the 1984 Olympics--when the U.S. men took the gold medal--volleyball has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry, with corporate sponsors, a 23-tournament professional circuit and a select handful of athletes who next year could earn more than President Bush.
Volleyball's popularity has set up the industry's Gucci: Mossimo, with its line of volley shorts and coordinating T-shirts, mock turtlenecks and accessories tailored to the needs and tastes of the growing ranks of volleyball aficionados.
The success of 3-year-old Mossimo Sport Inc. parallels the emerging volleyball apparel industry, where sales figures these days are soaring higher than the players in the latest sport of choice among California's beach set.
In the last five years, more than 23 million enthusiasts have spilled onto the courts, up from 14 million just five years ago, according to Volleyball Monthly, an industry-spawned magazine. At the same time, prize money now tops $2 million--an astronomical increase from $5,000 a dozen years ago.
The volleyball apparel business is dominated by a handful of small, entrepreneurial Southern California companies. Mossimo of Irvine--headed by Mossimo Giannulli--leads the pack when it comes to style, if not sales.
The Mossimo line "is not just your basic, dumb-dumb stuff. It's more fashionable, (and) there's a little more thought in designing it," said Tom Noble, manager and buyer for Newport Surf & Sport, a surf wear shop where Mossimo's is the No. 1 selling volleyball apparel.
The company first won notice two years ago when Giannulli, now 26, took a gamble by introducing volley shorts in Day-Glo lime, pink, yellow and orange. The shorts--which retail for $32 to $36--came along at a time when the surf wear market was flooded with garment-washed treatments and wild prints.
At the same time, Giannulli plastered the seats with a distinctive, gigantic "M" signature logo in black so there was no mistaking the label.
The result was $1.3 million in sales in 1988--which is expected to swell to $5.1 million by the end of this year, Giannulli said.
