Despite low attendance at MAGIC, show quality remained top shelf - Show Coverage: Magic - apparel industry trade show

DSN Retailing Today, March 10, 2003 by Emily Scardino

LAS VEGAS -- Lady Luck, or rather Mother Nature, dealt an unfavorable hand to this year's MAGIC show. With the Northeast enrobed in snow, many of New York's Garment District finest were prevented from making it out to the show on time--if at all. Fortunately, thanks to the Midwestern headquarters of many of America's top retailers (Bentonville Ark., for one), the buyers were out in force.

The biannual event, held at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), was low in terms of the quantity of attendees, but the quality was high.

"We're having meaningful meetings as scheduled with our top retail partners," said Jon Ragsdale, vp of marketing and gin, core workwear for Dickies, after convening with a pack of Wal-Mart buyers. However, many vendors were operating with skeleton crews, including Americo, G-III and Mecca.

Dickies' booth included most of its myriad licensed offerings, like its Apparel Ltd. juniors line, "cross-merchandised" together, as it did last show. It turns out this focus on brand extensions was a harbinger of more of the same across a number of apparel companies this time around.

"We're seeing customers respond well to successful teen and adult brands that are branching out into new categories," said Linda Keller, buyer, boys apparel at Bealls, citing OTB as an example.

The dominant trend at the February installment of the show was variations on a theme. Many lines that have proven successful are being extended into new categories. Among examples of this are Old Toledo's men's Dodge line, being taken into women's and children's, and P. Diddy's Sean Jean line, being brought into misses after finding success in a children's brand extension last year. At mass, the trend influences private label.

Because of this crossover, many booths included men's, women's and children's wear.

Lady Luck has been smiling on certain categories like ladies' wear, a fact made evident at MAGIC. Traffic per square foot at the Sands, where women's and juniors were shown, was atypically higher in many cases than at the LVCC.

This was due to strong retailer interest in keeping the juniors category strong and in expanding misses business with fashion.

Women's wear "continues to do very well--we're in our fifth or sixth year of positive increases," said Betsy McLaughlin, ceo of Hot Topic. 'What we saw at MAGIC was very, very encouraging" in terms of salable new trends.

Standing-room-only fashion shows at the Sands evidenced healthy doses of newness from vendors including Dollhouse and Hot Kiss. Men's styles are finding their way into woven casual suits-zip-up jackets with matching pegged pants--and military influences remain strong, both on fashion.

Trends were more nebulous at the LVCC, where things were especially slow in the designer and once-again relocated children's wear sections. Many vendors, including Russell Athletic and Levi Strauss, rented rooms instead of setting up booths.

"It's important to walk the show and to meet with key retailers, but it's also expensive, so we decided it made more sense for us to take this route," said Jonathan Matthews, director of innovation at Russell Athletic.

The MAGIC kids section was moved to Siberia this tear--to the far end of the bottom of the new South Hall wing. Though this area contains the young men's section on the bottom level, and the moderately jumping urban/streetwear and board sports areas on the top level, the sheer distance from front to back was prohibitive to many of the remaining children's wear vendors in getting significant traffic.

"It's very quiet over there," said Terry Binkley, director of marketing at M. Hidary, on her way to a licensor's booth.

Children's has been a relatively strong category in a weak apparel business in recent months, however. Denim is expected to perform especially well.

"Jeans are still exceptionally strong in boys and girls," said James Frank, buyer, JCPenney.

Jeans are also expected to be strong in men's wear, where "we have seen a very positive reaction to our offerings," said Angelo LaGrega, president of VF Jeanswear's mass-market division. Dickies and Levi's confirm this positive change of events.

A trend is sorely needed in the struggling men's wear category. The fact that much buyer attention was focused n women's at the show formerly known as the Men's Apparel Guild of California spoke volumes.

Aside from the brand licensing and extensions rampant amongst tiers of distribution, character licensing was received moderately well. Many retailers are on board for Universal's Hulk feature, and Warner Bros., Disney and Sesame Workshop properties are performing well in children's wear for many vendors. Nickelodeon's properties are especially well-received with young and older audiences. SpongeBob SquarePants is still one of top licenses out there, but the next big thing is yet to be determined.

"We're so fast, I haven't seen anything here that I didn't already know about," noted Scott Morton, buyer in men's novelty Ts at Hot Topic, where the shirts make up almost 50% of apparel sales.. Bands like Good Charlotte and licenses like SpongeBob have been top sellers, but the men's bottom business still needs direction.