Fashion-forward denim push is paying off - apparel & accessories

DSN Retailing Today, Sept 22, 2003

Once singing the blues about poor men's denim sales, retailers and their vendor partners are very pleased with current performance. After last year's slump of 5.1%, according to NPD Group research, this back-to-school is showing welcome signs of improvement, not just in the long-struggling men's category, but in product for the entire family.

"I think we are very pleased with our results from denim this back-to-school," said Alan Lacy, ceo and president of Sears Roebuck and Co. "We are up five basis points in terms of denim sales from last season."

It is a positive turn of events that the whole family is wearing denim again. This is not only because of improved sales, but because so many retailers had put their money on denim this season. Sears singled out denim in its national back-to-school television campaign, showing a host of men's, women's, plus-size and children's consumers finding their perfect pair. Wal-Mart Stores has made its family denim brand, Levi Strauss Signature, the star its circulars, giving it front-page coverage and has an extensive marketing area for the brand on Walmart.com, which features commercial-like film shorts. Though Wal-Mart is not using national advertising to call out the brand, it is making it a push in-store on Wal-Mart TV. As a result, sales across men's, women's and children's have been strong within the Levi Strauss Signature brand, according to a Wal-Mart spokeswoman.

Along similar lines, initial reports on sell-throughs for VF Jeanswear's Blu Jeans by the Makers of Lee, its new Target exclusive, are also positive. Sell-throughs are tracking in the high single digits and low double-digits weekly, according to a source who preferred to withhold his name.

Without national television advertising for either Wal-Mart's or Target's new brands, their performance is strong testimony to the strength of jean-swear across categories--not just in juniors anymore, the classification that had been carrying denim sales for many retailers for many seasons.

Because of the amazing performance of juniors denim over the past few years, JCPenney and specialty stores had called themselves out as destinations for denim, focusing their national and point-of-sale marketing efforts on the juniors market. Juniors retailer Wet Seal emphasized its private label brand, Blue Asphalt, which is a reported bestseller, in all of its television advertising. Mudd, 1.e.i. and Paris Blues were emphasized as destination brands by the mid-tier retailers that carried them.

This year, however, targeting advertising to the entire family is paying off. Like Sears, Kohl's is targeting all customers with its marketing, and denim has been one of the more positive sales areas for this retailer, as well as a result.

As noted, men's wear has been a particularly strong area. The reason for this improvement is that men are finally responding to fashion denim, which prompts incremental purchase. Success in juniors, then children's wear, helped bring this fabrication back to the forefront of fashion, and now men's wear customers are responding to a breadth of trends, and buying distressed, tinted and even dirty denim.

It has been years since me have started creating denim "wardrobes" for themselves, buying multiple denim silhouettes and colorations instead of one or two of the same pair, worn until they needed replacement. Men had been sticking with the basics, but now variety is what is prompting sales.

"There is no question that fashion basics will keep driving the business," said Angelo LaGrega, president of VF Jeanswear's mass-market division.

In men's, LaGrega adds, carpenter silhouettes with striations and dark washes have become as all-American in its Wrangler Hero brand as five-pocket bootcuts used to be. Updated cuts and fabrications are considered basic now, targeting Baby Boomers as well as young men's consumers. As one-in-four jeans sold in the mass market is sold under the Wrangler Hero brand, it is a good indicator that the market in general has experienced a sea of change.

Likewise, women's denim, particularly at the mass-market level, has also become a lot hipper, due to consumer demand. The classic high-waisted, peg-legged style that dominated rounders for years has been supplanted by jeans with lower rises, flared leg openings and a broad array of washes. The juniors product is much edgier than the missy wares, with rawhide lace-ups still hot this fall, but some of these trends are making it into women's wear.

One of them, the low-rise, is being served up in moderation in Rider's new Ultimate Fit jean, with a 360-degree stretch contour waist. The waist is high in the back and dips down a bit in the front, trendy but easy-to-wear. Stretch is also making its way into more and more women's silhouettes, including Blu at Target and Levi's at Wal-Mart. This would have been unheard of in a fashion silhouette even five years ago at mass, where the only stretch jeans available fit like a second skin, in the same high-waisted, peg-legged cut as non-stretch wovens.