School uniforms make the grade

Discount Store News, August 18, 1997

As public schools bus in uniform attire, discounters are getting on board.

It started several years ago in Long Beach, Calif., where educators grasped onto student uniforms as a novel idea for public schools.

The concept: No more leather, no more T-shirts, no more blue jeans ripped at the knees.

The result, say educators in Long Beach and a growing number of school districts across the United States, is that more students are focused on their books rather than on their gossip-driving, fight-starting apparel. And now retailers and clothing manufacturers are focusing on the navy blue and khaki assortments of skirts, pants, jumpers, sweaters and other items that fill racks of school uniforms placed prominently in girls' and boys' clothing departments.

"It's a growing business for us," says Mark Minsky, senior vice president/general merchandise manager for Caldor, which rolled out school uniforms in all of its stores last year after a successful test in 1995.

Sears' school uniform program, launched in 1995, grew 70 percent in 1996 and "is expected to grow dramatically in 1997," a spokesman says.

One knock of the uniform trend is that it may take away from traditional sportswear sales, but it can actually represent incremental sales.

"When we first went into this, everyone was afraid it would cut into sportswear business, but kids still want to wear jeans when they get home. They can't wait to get into their own clothes," says Elliott Tawil, executive vice president for Longstreet, a manufacturer based in New York.

Merchants and manufacturers say the uniform market is still far from reaching its potential. Launched mostly in scattered urban areas, the category still has plenty of geography to enter, as school districts in more urban, rural and suburban areas subscribe to what President Clinton promotes as a way of making schools a safer place where "young people will learn to evaluate themselves by what they are on the inside instead of what they're wearing on the outside."

"If it means that teenagers will stop killing each other over designer jackets, then our public schools should be able to require their students to wear school uniforms," Clinton says.

Responding to the lead taken by Long Beach, where a mandatory uniform policy for elementary and middle schools led to a 36 percent drop in school crime, according to a 1995 study by the district, the Clinton Administration ordered the Federal Education Department last year to distribute manuals to the country's 16,000 school districts advising them on how they can legally require students to wear uniforms. As of today, there are at least 12 states that have enacted laws authorizing school districts to implement either voluntary or mandatory dress codes. As more states and school districts follow, retailers as well as clothing manufacturers are gearing up for a sales boom, though rolling out to the right store locations can be a tricky undertaking.

"We found out as we tried to spread the product, that we didn't have a clear distribution plan by school districts. It didn't work," says Sandy Sansavera, general merchandise manager for Rocky Hill, Conn.-based Ames Department Stores. "We didn't research it well enough."

But that was last year. After studying which locations had strong demand, such as a large store in Washington, D.C., that sold out of the category, Ames reconfigured its distribution and now expects strong sales for this year. "We're letting schools know we have the goods, and making sure we know what they need," Sansavera says, adding that his strongest markets are in all areas -- rural, urban and suburban

Retailers and manufacturers are banking on continued sales growth as the uniform trend, now primarily in elementary and middle schools, spreads across the country. But there may be even greater growth potential moving into higher school grades. Uniforms are beginning to win favor in high schools as well, at least with educators, if not students.

"Where the long-term growth will go is in older children," says Tawil.

For now, merchandisers are mostly playing up uniforms in sizes for elementary and middle school students, or ages six through 13. Girls' displays tend to be more extensive than boys' and supplemented with larger assortments of accessories, such as hair clips and leggings.

In a Target store in the Chicago metropolitan area, uniforms under the Honors private label and Official School Wear by French Toast label fill four circular racks in the girls' department. They are prominently positioned on a main aisle and cross-merchandised with shelves stocked with leggings and 3-packs of T-shirts in white, blue and pink solids and prints.

The uniforms included cotton twill shorts, priced at $11.99 to $13.99; cotton twill pants, $13.99 to $16.99; pleated polyester jumpers in three styles, $9.99 to $12.99; and shorts in cotton-polyester blends, at $12.99. These items share rack space with several varieties of cotton and polyester/cotton blouses, in both placketed models, and pullovers. Some with lacy collars are marked at $7.99.