By Mollee Francisco
In the front window of Wally’s Sports & Clothing in downtown Chaska hangs a sign that makes passersby do a double-take.
“ZUBAZ PANTS are HERE!”
It’s no holdover from the zebra-striped pants craze of the late ’80s and early ’90s, though. The sign and the product hanging behind it are all new. Zubaz are back.
Bob Truax, of Victoria, was there when it all began nearly 20 years ago and now he’s back, along with fellow founding father Dan Stock, to see if a new generation will fall for their crazy-printed knit pant.
“When he told me about them, I said ‘I want ’em,’” offered Les Dahlberg, owner of Wally’s. “Now I’m on my second shipment.”
At their height in the early 1990s, Zubaz pants were flying off the shelves at the rate of 2 million pairs a year. “We made 65,000 pants a week at peak,” noted Truax.
Truax is realistic in his expectations for the product this time around, though.
“We’re only trying to recapture a little bit of that,” he said.
Name-brand recognition should help. In the 1990s, Zubaz – named after an “in your face” attitude phrase that Truax and Stock came up with - could be seen on everyone from professional wrestlers to NFL and NBA players to rock stars. Not bad for a pant that got its start in a gym.
Seeing a need
It was the late 1980s and Truax and Stock were professional weightlifters in the health club business. The story goes that one day a wrestling buddy came into the gym wearing big, baggy black pants, and an idea popped into their heads.
“At that time, it was tough to fit guys with big legs,” explained Truax.
So they sought to solve the problem by buying fabric and finding a seamstress to make some simple oversized knit pants for them.
They started with a standard black fabric and also purchased some wild prints in bold colors. But in May 1988, when the pants went on the shelf at their gym, it was the wild prints that caught people’s eye.
“They were selling like crazy at the health club,” said Truax. “As soon as we sold $10,000 out of our little gym, we knew we had something.”
Truax and Stock decided to expand their operation, focusing in on the zebra print as their signature pant style. Production moved to the women’s prison in Shakopee, where inmates started assembling the pants.
As orders rolled in from JCPenney, Footlocker and Champs, the work was moved to factories in the Carolinas. Two years into production, Zubaz were doing $20 million in sales.
Truax and Stock partnered with any sports organization they could to get their pants seen on a national level.
“We hooked up with NFL equipment managers to put the pants on hurt players on the sidelines,” recalled Truax.
They developed color schemes for every professional and collegiate team that would let them from the NFL to the NBA to the NHL. “It was a pretty exciting time,” said Truax.
The list of big names that wore their pants is nearly endless, including Michael Jordan, Hulk Hogan and Dan Marino (who was a partner). Truax can also recall hosts of celebrities that made their way to their warehouses to buy their product.
“Billie Joel’s band loved Zubaz,” said Truax. “I remember Barbara Mandrel’s bus and John Madden’s bus pulling up and the entire Chicago Bulls team stopping by.”
That popularity among celebrities gave the pants the visibility they needed to convince the masses that they, too, needed a pair of the zebra print pants.
Eventually, Zubaz was doing $100 million in sales, selling everything from shorts to T-shirts to jackets.
“The pants were always our bestseller,” said Truax. “We were always focused around the pants.”
The pants were so big, that JCPenney reported sales periods when they outsold Levi’s jeans. But the craze wouldn’t last forever.
The return
In 1996, Truax and Stock sold Zubaz to a New York-based company. A few years later, that company went bankrupt and the duo got the trademark back, setting them up for a possible return in the future.
Still, Truax and Stock were in no hurry to resurrect their trademark product – that was until people started asking for it. “We’ve been hearing over the last three to four years that people want it back,” Truax said.
After studying the possibilities and the logistics for a year and a half, Truax and Stock quietly re-launched their product this fall on the Internet and in a few local stores like Wally’s.
“We’re not even guaranteeing it will work,” said Truax. “But so far, the response has been amazing.”
Few changes were made to the pants – the most notable of which was a less-tapered ankle. Otherwise, they were resurrected to look and wear almost exactly as they were nearly two decades ago.
But while the pant is essentially the same, the marketing has changed. This time, Zubaz’ target audience is the 16- to 24-year-old with disposable income. And rather than getting their product on celebrities to get the word out, Truax and Stock are taking it to the streets. High school teams around the metro have already been bestowed with the product, hoping that putting the pants on a few will piqued the interest of many.
Truax’s kids have already been recruited to help – his son at Chaska High School and his daughter at the University of Wisconsin-Stout.
“This time we’re looking at the long term,” said Truax. “We want to be the Kleenex of baggy pants.”
Find Zubaz locally at Wally’s Sports & Clothing, 218 Chestnut St., Chaska or Gold Medal Sports, 445 W. 79th St., Chanhassen or purchase online at www.zubaz.com [1].
What do you think of the return of Zubaz? Will you purchase a pair?