Live from the Licensing Show: Tweety Flies with Nicky Hilton
Warner Bros. Consumer Products is injecting new life in its iconic Tweety property with a new fashion collection by celebrity designer and Hilton heiress Nicky Hilton.
The collection, called Tweety Designed By Nicky Hilton, includes stationery, personal care, home décor and pet couture branded with the wide-eyed yellow bird. The line is scheduled to debut in select U.S. markets and dedicated retail pop-up shops in the spring of 2007. The pop-up shops will operate for six-week runs in select U.S. locations.
At a media conference yesterday at the Licensing Show, Brad Globe, president, Warner Bros. Worldwide Consumer Products, said the brand wants to build on its successful launch of the Tweety brand at top retailers, including Kitson in Los Angeles and SCOOP in New York. The effort marked the first time Tweety joined the upscale fashion scene.
“We are taking Tweety to the next level,” Globe said yesterday.
(Globe used the occasion to mark his official succession to the post of president. He had joined Warner Bros. Consumer Products in February 2005 as EVP and general manager. He now replaces Dan Romanelli, founder and former president of Warner Bros. Consumer Products. In this post, Globe will oversee all business functions, including domestic and international licensing, worldwide marketing, business and legal affairs, finance and retail business development for the group.)
To add to the excitement around the launch, Hilton, dressed in black with yellow spike-heel shoes and Tweety jewelry, perched on a Tweety-branded motorcycle clutching a Tweety-handbag for photographers. The motorcycle will appear in pop-up shops as part of the Tweety Designed by Nicky Hilton collection.
Hilton said her designs would include “apparel, accessories and some really neat stuff” based on the Warner Bros. canary.
The Tweety brand has been around for more than 50 years. Adults like it for its nostalgic appeal, while know that famous canary for its fashion sense.
“People want to go back and embrace what they love as kids,” said Karen McTier, executive VP of domestic licensing and worldwide marketing, Warner Bros. Consumer Products, in a previous interview. “People want to sort of revisit when times were… simpler and when things weren’t so complicated. Being nostalgic about things has become very fashionable and very trendy.”
Rather than focusing on the brand in the toy aisle, Warner Bros. Consumer Products is keeping the brand fresh apparel and fashion.
“People want to wear trendy clothes,” she said. “They are much more fashion conscious than they have ever been.”
