To Costa Mesa Clothing Maker, Too Much Isn’t a Good Thing

Most people don’t mind exceeding their goals, but when Holly Sharp reached hers last year, she slammed on the brakes.

The designer, who in 1998 launched her Lucy Love clothing line for young women, said she cut off sales when they doubled in the first year to control growth and distribution.

“Half the orders that came in for spring were not processed,” Sharp said Saturday from her booth at the Action Sports Retailers Trade Expo in Long Beach, where a young model showed off a Lucy Love offering, a fitted red dress with skinny shoulder straps that retails for $62.

The Costa Mesa-based company, which last year had 180 accounts, now has 250, she said. This year, it will open 50 more accounts, Sharp said. Lucy Love--a collection of sportswear, casual dresses, nighties and underclothes--sells mostly in surf shops.

The company’s quick success can be traced to the creativity of its designer, said Gary Mykles, a sales rep for Huntington Beach-based Beach Brokers. “She’s always coming up with new styles and new looks and she executes those real well,” he said.

Over the next couple of years, Sharp will be building her business internationally, she said. The first international account will be in Japan, where Sharp said her designs have been enthusiastically received. In 2001, she intends to strike her first licensing agreement, for swimwear.

SGS Sports in Montreal, which also makes swimwear for Redondo Beach-based Body Glove International, was supposed to have the first Lucy Love licensing deal, making swimwear that would have been shipped this spring. But the arrangement “did not work out,” controller Farah Ghavami said, declining to elaborate.