Lines With Comic Relief At Vera And Honey

NEW YORK -- The toons continue to invade the accessories field.

The Vera Cos. and Honey Fashions have both entered into agreements with Determined Productions, a New York and San Francisco licensing firm, to produce scarves and other products featuring comic strip characters.

Vera is manufacturing a line of Peanuts scarves and ties, featuring characters from the "Peanuts" comic strip -- Snoopy, Woodstock, Charlie Brown and the rest of the gang. Honey Fashions is doing a Felix the Cat collection. Both lines will be introduced at the January market next week.

Sol Schulman, president of Vera, said, "We've had wonderful success, and significant reorders, with our Save the Children collection of patterned scarves that we introduced earlier this year. We're anticipating success with the Peanuts gang as well."

Schulman projected about $250,000 in sales for the line's first year, which will be targeted to department and specialty stores.

The "Peanuts" scarves will be made of microfiber polyester crepe in Italy, and will wholesale from $6.75 to $7.50 each.

Honey Fashions's Felix the Cat collection will include a variety of items, including scarves, backpacks, hair accessories, knitwear, vests, totes, school bags, gloves and coordinating caps.

Geraldine Carey, divisional vice president for Felix the Cat products at Honey, said the collection will be distributed to department and specialty stores and a few mass merchants, with different merchandise for each retail category.

The line, which wholesales from $1.50 for hair accessories to $10 for an overnight-size tote bag, will be in stores in April and May.

Fabrications will include nylon and canvas for bags and totes, twill for caps, and crepe de chine for hair accessories.

Honey Fashions also has cartoon licensees for Mickey & Co. and Mickey Unlimited.