Freezy Freakies Oh No Theyre Changing Again Video
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Freezy Freakies, a Colorful Blast From Winters Past
If you've heard of Freezy Freakies gloves, Hans and Karl Reichstetter know this about you: You were probably born in the 1970s or early 1980s and you probably spent your childhood in the Northeast.
"That was the epicenter of Freezy Freakdom," Hans Reichstetter said. Children liked their Freezy Freakies gloves considering colorful unicorns, hearts, robots and other objects sprouted on them every bit if by magic when the conditions turned frosty.
The Swany America Corporation, based in Johnstown, Northward.Y., started making the gloves in 1980, selling them mainly in department stores and children's clothing stores for more than than a decade. The gloves were also very popular in Chicago.
In 1981, the Reichstetters, who are twins, were born into Freezy Freakdom — specifically, Larchmont, Northward.Y. Recently their dress company, Buffoonery Factory, based in San Francisco, licensed the brand to make adult versions of the gloves. Their visitor is one of two with licenses to make Freezy Freakies gloves, and their story offers lessons on the challenges of reviving an old product.
The Reichstetters sought the license partly because they had fond memories of the gloves and wanted to wear them again.
"These were hot the same fourth dimension that the Cabbage Patch doll was out and Transformers were out," said Bruce Weinberg, who oversaw sales and distribution for Freezy Freakies gloves and is a vice president of Swany America.
Freezy Freakies gloves were made with thermochromic ink, which remains translucent in high temperatures and turns bright colors in the common cold. At the fourth dimension, technology was starting time to enter homes in the form of video games and desktop computers. The gloves were an early example of high-tech dress.
During the height of Freezy Freakies' popularity in the late 1980s, sales topped 300,000 pairs annually, Mr. Weinberg said. The gloves deemed for roughly 20 pct of Swany America's sales, and they were so trendy that the company briefly considered changing its proper name to Freezy Freakies, he said.
The gloves' popularity waned in the 1990s. During that time Swany granted a license to a company that briefly made Freezy Freakies jackets. By the next decade, glove sales had dwindled to just a few hundred pairs a year, Mr. Weinberg said.
Only even after buyers lost their zeal for Freezy Freakies, the thermochromic ink survived. These days, Coors Light cans are emblazoned with information technology; the ink shines blue when the beer is common cold and fades to white when information technology becomes warm.
When the Reichstetters decided they wanted to revive Freezy Freakies, they weren't quite sure where to start.
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"We couldn't figure out if people were still making them or selling them," said Hans, who is based in New York. His brother, Karl, who has a full-time job at a tech company and does Buffoonery Factory projects on the side, lives in San Francisco. Their visitor'due south best-known cosmos is the Griz Coat, a bear costume for adults that became a hit with millennials.
Finally the two tracked down Swany America, which even so specializes in gloves, including high-operation ski gloves. Subsequently they approached the company in 2013 to request a licensing agreement, a business contact helped them notice a glove manufacturer and a company making thermochromic ink.
As it turned out, they weren't the start ones with the idea of licensing the Freezy Freakies brand. Mr. Weinberg said a few companies had approached Swany America over the previous ten years, but it wasn't interested.
"We didn't call up it was the right fourth dimension to do it," he said.
Simply when the Reichstetters called him, the pop-culture mood was finally right. "A lot of '80s items are coming back," Mr. Weinberg said, pointing to the current popularity of Underoos, the superhero-themed underwear from the 1980s that was reintroduced recently.
The Reichstetters weren't the just ones with Freezy Freakies on the brain. Michael Brett, executive vice president and head of licensing for Fantasia Accessories of Manhattan, had repeatedly approached Swany America about licensing the make and the original designs for children. Terminal autumn, Swany agreed.
Mr. Brett, like the Reichstetters, had grown up in Freezy Freakdom. In fact, his parents had done sales for Swany America on the original product. "I had Freezy Freakies before they were fifty-fifty in the market and the stores," Mr. Brett said.
Swany America wanted a 3- to 5-twelvemonth commitment from its licensees. If they hitting certain sales targets, the contract will automatically renew; if they don't, it volition not.
Buffoonery Manufactory sold 1,900 pairs of developed gloves in 4 of the original designs through a Kickstarter campaign that ended this month, and it will continue selling gloves on its website.
Fantasia will begin selling children'southward hats and gloves this autumn, and ski gloves this fall in stores and through its website and retailers' sites. Mr. Brett said the company planned to use the original Freezy Freakies designs as well as new ones. But in an era when tech gadgets are ubiquitous, volition children experience the same sense of wonder at the sight of unicorns materializing on and vanishing from their hands?
Seth Godin, an entrepreneur and author who has written books on marketing and how ideas spread, is skeptical. "You're wearing them because you're making a argument about your by, not your hereafter," he said. "With most resurrected brands, that's all they're able to do."
"The question I would inquire is, do they look when these wear out that people volition reorder more?" Mr. Godin said.
Mr. Brett, whose visitor as well has licensing agreements with Disney and Nickelodeon, says he is convinced that the answer is aye. And that's considering "the whole retro '80s tendency is actually but so hot," he said.
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Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/15/business/freezy-freakies-a-colorful-blast-from-winters-past.html
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