Girls' dresses go casual - Children - Special Supplement: AM Apparel Marketing

Discount Store News, July 22, 1991

Girls' dresses go casual

Sugar and spice, among other ingredients, have traditionally defined little girls. Add a few polka dots, some taffeta, bows and lace, and you've described the traditional core of a seasonal girls' dress business.

Girls' dresses have long been clothing items that conjure up fantasy and whimsy. Yet in an age where blue jeans, leggings and all weights of fleece are the norm, party dresses with delicate details and trimmings become special occasion garments with limited year-round retail appeal.

Though holiday dresses still represent the lion's share of business for most manufacturers and merchants, many vendors and retailers are in the early stages of stretching the girls' dress business beyond the Easter and Christmas selling seasons.

Their most recent emphasis has been on creating and merchandising styles that still look fresh and pretty--little girlish-- but are more casual.

The reasons for this change in direction is obvious when considering the statistics. By emulating sportswear looks, dress merchants hope to increase their share of sales. According to industry estimates for 1990, girls' dresses (toddler to pre-teen) had a retail volume of $1.1 billion, while the total girls' category accounted for about $8.6 billion. Manufacturers and retailers hope to change this as they take on the challenge of changing the market from formal to fun.

Roses, Henderson, N.C., is one of the discounters that has aggressively altered its buying patterns as this trend takes hold. According to Sabrina

Freeman, girls' buyer, dresses will be offered for back-to-school 1991 at the chain. Last year, the discounter offered the bulk of its dresses only at Easter and Christmas.

J.C Penney has posted a 15% year-to-date increase in the girls' dress business for the chain. The increase has been boosted by the newer styles that play up casual styling.

At Kahn Lucas Lancaster, which produces private label and branded goods for a number of mass merchants, sportier looks in dresses incorporate combinations of knits and wovens. In addition, larger stripe and floral patterns are designed for everyday wear, while more subtle prints are reserved for special-occasion styles, according to Bruce Foreman, sales manager. Is this strategy working in terms of developing a year-round market? Foreman says that sales for dresses have been flat, but because of casual styling changes "there is a light at the end of the tunnel."

Retail price points for Kahn Lucas Lancaster dresses range from $11.99 to $23.99 in sizes 4 to 6X. The 7-14 size range is priced higher. Goods in this range start at $15.99, but certain fancy styles hit store floors marked at $50.

Another reason some dress manufacturers and retailers cite that favors a full-year dress business is the "return to traditional values" movement, which some believe has meant more little girls dressing for church on Sunday.

Despite these inroads, the girls' dress business still generates most sales during the Christmas and Easter periods. Yet the sportswear influence has even penetrated these traditionally dressed-up seasons.

"We are really a casual/active operation and though the girls' dress area remains a seasonal category, we still don't get too dressy" says David Potter, divisional merchandise manager, Prange Way, Green Bay, Wis.

According to Potter, the Prange Way stores market to a small town customer who dresses his or her children more casually. In addition, the store has focused on the trend in the children's area to be sportswear-oriented, even in the dresses it does offer. Potter says it was a necessary shift. "You really saw it happening about three years ago. The entire girls' department became so active," he says. Although Potter attributes his store's casual positioning to their rural locations, the move toward sportswear looks has become a part of merchandising plans countrywide.

However, plans do vary. At stores such as Roses, dresses differ in degree of dressiness from season to season. According to Freeman, dresses in stretch knits are year-round sellers and are actually considered sportswear pieces. Styles featuring velvet and satin fabrics and more detailing are considered special occasion buys, and often carry a higher price tag that matches that definition.

"The variation in price depends on the size and the styling," she says. "Many of the manufacturers we deal with have mixed woven chintz with the velvet in an attempt to bring the prices down."

Price points here range to $15 for 4 to 6X and $17 for 7 to 14. The holiday styles are slightly higher, extending to $20 in 4 to 6X, and $24 in the 7 to 14 size range.

Though the disparate casual and dressy models still hold their respective places in the market, a common thread nevertheless runs through both points of view; dress styles are much more sophisticated than in the past. "The styles offered today are very special. They are no longer |dumb dresses,'" explains Mary Jane Benequit, vice president of merchandising for Seibel & Stern.