Jeans fit into 90s style - Women - AM: Apparel Merchandising

Discount Store News, Sept 2, 1991 by Jill Lettich

Jeans fit into 90s style

The women's jeans market is evolving and adjusting to the needs of a changing denim customer.

For the past few seasons, marketers spent most of their time targeting the aging female baby boomer. Those women - who wore tight designer jeans in the disco era - are now looking for comfort, an easy fit and a price compatible with the family budget.

That scenario sent jeans manufacturers into a frenzy. In the last few years, relaxed and baggy jeans were covering the market. Looser-fitting styles were designed to attract the misses clientele.

But now manufacturers and marketers are opting for a dual-pronged approach. With some baby-boomer babies coming of age, denim producers and retailers refocused their efforts toward juniors. Narrower silhouettes for the younger customers started to come on strong during the spring 1991 season, and for 1992 such merchandise is expected to grow in importance.

In the past, discount-store retailers made only small distinctions between their misses and juniors jeans assortments. Now, however, they're focusing their assortments to correspond more closely to a particular segment of their customer base. Retailers are doing a balancing act to find the mix that sells to two distinctly different customers.

As might be expected, highly styled fashion jeans are being offered in juniors, while a relaxed fit or easy basics option, mostly in five-pocket silhouettes, is now more likely to be featured in a misses category.

Those in-store merchandising decisions are perhaps the most important factors in determining the success of the line in the coming year. Though some increases in sales are expected, especially for back-to-school apparel, the overall retail climate is still difficult and merchandisers are more closely scrutinizing purchases.

Bradlees, based in Braintree, Mass., is one of the operations taking an aggressive stance in what traditionally has been known as juniors but currently is termed "young contemporary" by Karen Sheehan, divisional merchandise manager of Bradlees. She estimates her customers in the area are between the ages of 18 and 25 and often a little older.

Bradlees features most of the major discount brands in jeans, and it is testing Bonjour's proportioned-fit jeans at its stores. In most of its own promotions, both markets have been taken into consideration. A recent campaign featured Sasson jeans for $14.99 which, according to a circular, were designed for both misses and juniors. The jeans had a basic, five-pocket styling and were available in traditional blues or blacks as well as in "fashion" finishes - various acid-washed and distressed looks.

Sheehan is optimistic about denim, particularly because of a strong spring in some denim fabrics. Shortalls and traditional shorts did well for Bradlees early in the season, she explains.

Even off-pricers, such as Marshalls, have differentiated between basic brands and the fashion labels. In some cases the basics have been offered up to size 16, while the fashionable designs are marketed in separate areas in smaller sizes - 5 to 13 - and usually to younger customers.

Kmart is tackling both the mature and juniors denim markets. The store features a Gitano juniors shop in its new prototype unit and carries in its other units virtually every major updated label that is sold in discount stores. A separate category in misses is also fully assorted. In addition, buyers at the 2,000-door operation are addressing large sizes in a big way. Resources in that department include Chic and Gitano, two lines that were instrumental in developing the category. It's interesting that the merchandise is part of the misses assortment rather than broken out in a special-size department.

Unlike Kmart, some other retailers have focused on only a single segment of the business. David Potter, general merchandise manager of Prange Way, Green Bay, Wis., reports that the Midwestern chain is shifting its emphasis away from juniors toward misses and specialty sizes - not only in jeans but also in women's wear in general. Prange Way offers a number of jeans labels. But the store is placing special emphasis on Lee products, with a special display of five-pocket basics meant to attract a more traditional discount-store shopper.

"It didn't make sense for so much space to be devoted to juniors when the majority of our customers were shopping in other departments," he says.

That closer scrutinization of the market by retailers and manufacturers is not surprising in the light of the uncertainty in the denim area or, for that matter, apparel in general.

Those results have fueled retailers' efforts to fine-tune the categories for women's denim. Retailers, in turn, have focused on one customer category or have more clearly delineated the different customers they serve.

The newcomer to the market is Rustler For Women, a division of Wrangler. The company abandoned the brand on the women's side about four years ago and concentrated on building the Rustler brand in men's jeans. According to Alan Bell, vice president and general manager for Rustler, the market had a void that had to be filled.