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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Clothing Retailers Hurt By Shifting Priorities Baby Boom Generation Is Spending Less On Apparel And More On Their Households

Associated Press

American women sent retailers a clear message this year: We don’t like your clothes. We’re not buying them. We don’t even want that many clothes.

But store owners have been painfully slow to catch on, and women’s clothing merchants were the also-rans in the retail industry in 1994.

Home furnishings and electronics retailers did well for much of the year, and especially so at Christmas, their second-straight winning holiday season. Toy-sellers and merchants of men’s and children’s clothes also fared well.

For apparel companies, it was almost like the recession never ended - few women seemed willing to buy. The immediate problem was unseasonable weather, but clothing merchants also bogged down because of deeper-seated troubles: They can’t seem to get fashions onto the racks that consumers want.

When the consumer spending boom of the 1980s began to wind down, many retailing industry gurus warned that the country’s then-voracious appetite for clothing would lessen. They were right.

“The postwar baby boom is less interested in apparel, and spending on their households is more of a priority,” said Thomas Tashjian, a retail industry analyst with the investment firm First Manhattan Co.

This shift happened for several reasons. Women who splurged on wardrobes before the recession learned to think twice before buying scads of clothing - who knew if they or their mates would have jobs tomorrow?

They now had children to feed and clothe. With college tuition and retirement in their future, they were trying to put more money aside.

Suddenly it was OK to dress down at work. Women didn’t need as much career clothing.

Yet while demand for clothes has shrunk, the number of retailers selling apparel has grown.

“We are overstored in this country …” said Karen Sack, an analyst with Standard & Poor’s Corp. “There’s going to be slow growth ahead.”

Apparel retailers hurting the most are the specialty stores, which have lost market share to revitalized department stores and burgeoning discounters like Wal-Mart and Target.

Sales figures released by the stores support the theory that there are too many women’s clothing stores.

In November, at Charming Shoppes, which operates more than 1,400 women’s clothing stores, sales from stores open at least a year fell 11 percent.

At Limited, same-store sales fell 4 percent, and at Filene’s Basement, they fell 4 percent.

But at Bed, Bath & Beyond, a small but growing home furnishings chain, same-store sales rose 8.7 percent in November. Best Buy, the electronics retailer, reported a 17 percent same-store gain.

Analysts expect to see a shift among retailers in the coming years.

“I suspect you’re going to see more home furnishing stores in malls,” said John Konarski, director of research at the International Council of Shopping Centers. He named Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn as candidates for expansion in regional malls.

New apparel stores will open, but “you just might see slower store openings, or stores like The Limited, who sell clothing, converting to other formats,” Sack said. She also predicted apparel retailers would be downsizing in the years ahead.

The coming year is expected to be tough for retailers across the board.

Still, some retailers on a roll now are expected to do well in 1995, including Home Depot, The Sports Authority and Baby Superstores.