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WOODBURY, CT – A new store on Route 6 featuring motorcycle apparel and accessories quietly opened for business on Tuesday. Fowlers USA offers riding jackets and pants, gloves and other gear, and is owned by Sasha Fowler-LeBlanc and her husband, Todd LeBlanc.
The retail business may be new, but its roots can be traced back some 90 years to Bristol, England. Fowler-LeBlanc’s great-grandparents, Frank and Alice Fowler, started a shop in 1926 that sold perambulators and tricycles. Within two months, Fowler-LeBlanc’s motorcycle-loving grandfather, Harry Fowler, joined and the company soon got into motorcycles.
Fowlers U.K. currently has a multi-brand dealership in Bristol, selling Aprilia, Honda, KTM, Moto Guzzi, Suzuki, Triumph and Yamaha motorcycles, as well as an in-house apparel division that sells gear through hundreds of retailers in Europe under the Weise, Duchinni and Gear Gremlin names. The company expanded into the U.S. in 2010 with a subsidiary based in a Waterbury, CT warehouse.
The goal was to sell the company’s apparel in North America. Dealers were lined up, including Doc’s Motorcycle Parts in Waterbury. In Jan. 2015, the subsidiary went away with the couple starting Fowlers USA as a separate corporate entity. Fowler-LeBlanc continues as marketing manager for the British company.
The arrangement isn’t as confusing as it sounds. Fowlers USA continues to provide products to motorcycle dealers and shops, but the move to the 2,800-square-foot Woodbury location (former home of the Town & Country Glass Shop) provided the opportunity to get into retail.
“We have dealers but no one can display all of our products,” Fowler-LeBlanc explained Wednesday afternoon. “When people say ‘Where can I try on a jacket?,’ we want to be able to send them to a dealer first, but that’s not always possible.” The store offers an opportunity “where they can touch and feel the product.”
The location was selected because “it happened to be on a big bike route,” said LeBlanc, who rides a 2001 Harley-Davidson Road King. Fowler-LeBlanc prefers a sportier 2015 Triumph Speed Triple, and the couple are quite a sight when out together. “We ride together. It’s fine,” she said.
While the Weise, Duchinni and Gear Gremlin names are not well known in the U.S. that isn’t true in Europe. Weise products have been around for 30 years. “Weise is very well known and very well respected,” Fowler-LeBlanc said.
Said Fowler, “We used to get phone calls (at the Waterbury distribution center) from people that were in Europe and were dying to get Weise here because they loved it so much.”
(Side note: I bought a pair of Weise boots in 2012 and reviewed them here.)
Fowler-LeBlanc and LeBlanc hope that the store will enable them to get customer input. “We can get first-hand customer feedback. This gives us help in developing future products, with features that the American rider wants,” Fowler-LeBlanc said.
Fowlers USA has gear that ranges in price from modest to expensive. Riding jackets cost anywhere from $129 to $499, for instance, and the store at 572 Main Street South (Route 6) even has riding jackets for kids.
Fowlers USA is now looking to hire a sales representative to get their products into more stores. The company doesn’t have an online store, but its products are available on Amazon.
