Ensemble Performance

Crazy 8
San Francisco
Parent company: The Gymboree Corporation
86 locations
www.crazy8.com

The flowered poncho top – 100 percent cotton batiste with back buttons and an attached jersey -- is airy and fashionable, a perfect complement to a pair of cotton twill white jeans. These, in turn, can be paired with a floral-trim terry sunhat, gems and jelly styled flip flops and a plastic bead necklace.

The outfit, designed to help young girls make a fashion statement this summer, will cost parents who shop at Crazy 8, Gymboree’s newest retail format, about $70. Found at a full-price specialty children’s store, all the components of a similar outfit would typically cost more than $100.

“The outfitting nature of the product and the upscale shopping environment are unique for kids clothing at this price point,” says Gymboree spokesman Mark Mizicko.

Typically, he says, the value segment of the children’s apparel market is focused on items (t-shirts, shorts, etc.) with styling “similar to what you’d find at an adult apparel store, whereas our focus is on creating entire outfits,” he says.

Gymboree self-sources and imports the product mix, which is sold under the Crazy 8 brand.
Crazy 8’s target market is shoppers who “set a limit to the amount that is appropriate to spend on children’s clothing, but who don’t want to sacrifice quality or fashion,” Mizicko says. A key differentiator: “We feel we’ve created an upscale shopping environment that is typical of more expensive stores.”

Crazy 8 has opened 86 units since being launched in August 2007, and plans call for as many as 100 additional locations to open this year, primarily in malls. Crazy 8 “broke even” in 2009, Mizicko says, and Gymboree expects it to become profitable this year.