I asked Dick Baker to weigh in on the distribution question. Dick is the president of SIMA, the former president of Op and an apparel veteran.

Men’s: Dick sees growth coming from online, brand extensions, company-owned stores and some limited department store business in areas outside of Southern California. He sees some additional growth at Macy’s West and at Nordstrom, which he considers a large specialty store.

Dick thinks the companies will continue to preserve and protect the core market but he doesn’t see a lot of growth coming from that sector.

Juniors: Dick thinks the biggest opportunity is in juniors. Except for Roxy, Dick said most brands treat juniors as a product extension of the guys, which is a mistake, he said.

“There’s a huge opportunity,” he said. “A lot of surf brands ebb and flow with juniors depending on how much effort they put into it. It’s a completely different business model. It’s very creative, takes a lot of design effort.”

Also, juniors can have broader distribution without hurting the core business. “There’s a lot more fashion and specialty stores for juniors then there are for guys and that’s considered acceptable distribution.”