NEW YORK — The snow and freezing rain that recently plagued parts of the Northeast and Midwest appear to have dampened denim sales this holiday season.
Many retailers said sales of jeans have fallen short of their expectations and that this year’s holiday figures pale in comparison to last year, despite the large selection in stores of this season’s hot styles, such as colorful embellishments, stretch denim and low-rise jeans.
The absence of a particular must-have denim fashion item to draw shoppers into the stores has contributed to a less-than-robust season, they added.
But retailers are counting on the coming weekend, which adds an extra two days to this year’s shopping season, and Chanukah’s late start this year (the holiday begins tonight at sundown) for a boost in sales.
“I don’t think that business is as strong as it was last year,” said Wayne Shulick, president of Smith Bros., a five-unit chain based in Mt. Laurel, N.J. “You have no control over the weather. We ended up having a good weekend, but I could tell you that it would have been a lot busier if the weather was different.”
Shulick said he is pinning his hopes on last-minute to shoppers to reverse the trend.
“We’re anticipating a big leap due to Chanukah being much later this year than last year and on another full weekend of Christmas shopping, since this year it falls on a Monday,” he said.
He added that he is unable to explain why business has been sluggish in recent weeks.
“I don’t know,” he said, “I can’t put my pulse on it.”
Shulick, whose stores range from 2,500- to 7,500-square-feet and are located in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, said “anything stretch is very strong.” He added the most popular brands are Earl Jeans, Mavi and Paper, Denim & Cloth.
At St. Louis-based Jacobson’s, which has 24 stores in the Midwest and Florida, spokeswoman Chris Gorton acknowledged “inclement weather” may be affecting denim sales, but “we’ve got a couple of extra days this year with Christmas falling on a Monday…as we get closer to the season everything is going to pick up.”
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Like most retailers interviewed, Gorton said “stretch denim flare is our strongest silhouette.” She added “sparkled denim is also selling well and anything with gold stitchingin terms of brand, XOXO is our strongest right now.”
In addition to poor weather, some retailers also cited the recent presidential election cliffhanger and economic factors for their less-than-stellar figures.
Colleen Pozzuoli, the buyer and manager at Caruso Caruso in Birmingham, Mich., said holiday sales have been “a little soft, but the denim is selling.” According to owner Frank Caruso, the 1,800-square-foot store’s holiday sales are about 10 percent less than they were last year.
Both Pozzuoli and Caruso attributed the decline in traffic to external political and economic factors.
“We sit in the middle of the auto industry and every company is having problems right now, so people are a little cautious this year,” Pozzuoli said.
Caruso added: “Number one, it would be the uncertainty of the presidency and number two, the market has taken a drop and a lot of people are concerned about that and the talk of interest rates rising.”
Pozzuoli said most shoppers are in search of low-waist, boot-cut and flare jeans. As for brands, she said “we’re still selling well with Mavi, in particular, the Molly, and Diesel has come into high swing with us.”
Despite the store’s sluggish holiday denim sales, Caruso said designer jeans sales have picked up in recent months at the expense of basics, a specialty-store trend he attributes to the expanded basics offerings in many department stores.
“In the last few months, higher-end denim has really picked up and the basics have fallen off a little bit,” he said. “The main reason for that is because the department stores are getting so deep into the basics, which are a little lower priced, and they are not jumping onto higher-end denim.”
Pozzuoli said Caruso Caruso was forced to stay competitive and put merchandise on sale one week before Thanksgiving, after department stores slashed prices. Normally, she said, the store’s merchandise does not go on sale until mid-December.
“I noticed the big department stores, like Nordstrom and Dayton Hudson, had merchandise 40 percent off, which forced us to go on sale earlier than we wanted to+we reluctantly had to do it to compete with everyone else.”
At 18-unit Washington, D.C.-based Up Against the Wall, with stores on the East and West Coasts, fashion director and buyer Wendy Red said denim sales have “not quite” met her expectations.
“I think it has a little do with the election,” she said. “I also don’t think that there have been many hot items this year like in previous years, where we will have one or twosometimes there is just an item that is impossible to get and we just don’t have that this year.”
Although Red said “stretch jeans are the leading force” of her business, she quickly added, “I’ve been carrying stretch for years, so it’s not like it’s a brand new thing+but sweater coats from XOXO and Cotton Emporium have just got hot.”
According to Red, Up Against The Wall sold about 500 pairs of stretch jeans a week last holiday season, compared with about 300 pairs this year.
Red said Sergio Valente and Parasuco jeans are the chain’s top two brands and “anything with cut-off or frayed waists or anything with studs has been great.”
Despite the chain’s less-than-stellar figures, Red said she is not concerned about carrying “too much merchandise” after the holidays.
“I think I’m well positioned in my stock,” she said. “I didn’t go overboard and get all stocked up. I tried to get stocked up on the items that were retailing and try and just get rid of the other inventory.”
Like Red, Barbara Lubel, buyer at Garden City, N.Y.-based Epic Design Stores, said denim sales at the chain’s 30 Northeast stores this holiday season is sluggish but tops are increasingly popular.
“Denim has softened up for us — our business for holiday is really more top driven,” she said. “Branded sweaters are doing unbelievable, especially from Polo and DKNY — we can’t keep them in.”
At Los Angeles’s American Rag, which carries a large selection of vintage jeans, as well as new merchandise, denim buyer Norm Adams said business “seems a little slow, but a lot of last-minute stuff is starting to pick up now.”
He said the store, located on La Brea Avenue in Hollywood, traditionally attracts shopping mall-weary customers during the final days leading up to Christmas.
“That is when we really get our business because people want to steer away from the malls,” he said. “They go to the malls a little earlier on in the season and they come here last-minute, so they don’t have to deal with parking at the mall.”
Back in the Midwest, Thomas George, owner of 4,000-square-foot denim shop E Street in Highland Park, Ill., said “our store is fine…we’re working hard to maintain our numbers and we certainly hope it will make last year’s figures.”
Like Up Against The Wall’s Red, George said stretch and low-rise jeans are popular, but they are not a new addition to his inventory.
“There is certainly more hype for lower rise, but we’ve been selling it for a year-and-a-half to two years, so for us it’s pretty much been the same,” he said. “I don’t find any particular new fit emerging.”
While some retailers are hoping for an onslaught of denim-demanding shoppers this weekend, others said their sales have been anything but sluggish.
“Since Thanksgiving, we’ve had a phenomenal business,” said Stefani Greenfield, co-owner of Scoop, a four-unit New York chain. “Anything in denim has been great, especially the Earl flare jean.”
Greenfield added that demand for “the Earl denim jacket with fleece lining has been outrageous.” She also said the low-rise stretch jeans from Paper, Denim & Cloth has also “been number one.”
As reported, Scoop soon hopes to open a unit in The Shore Club hotel in Miami’s hot South Beach neighborhood.
At The Atrium, an 8,000-square-foot store located in SoHo, owner Sam Ben-Avraham said he is “very happy with the season so far…we never have a huge holiday rush before the holiday, but we’ve increased our business compared to the year before.”
He added, “as far as brands, Diesel is really, really hot this season and we have Frankie B., which is also really hot right now.”
Ben-Avraham said form-fitting silhouettes and flare and boot cuts are the most popular styles.
“Right now the hottest thing for women is the low-waist stretch denim or really, really fine denim boot leg,” he said. “It’s got to be very sexy on top and go down to a boot leg.”
At Chicago-based The Lark Stores, president Leonard Rothschild said “our business has been very strong…we’re not up double digits since last year, but we’re up single digits.”
Rothschild said stretch denim is “still selling well” and Guess, Marithe Francois Girbaud, Sergio Valente and Iceberg are some of the chain’s “bestsellers.”
He added: “We have a gold outfit from Girbaud that’s doing extremely well+anything glitter is selling.”
Rothschild said sales traditionally increase at his 10 Midwest stores during the holiday season because many shoppers pick up items for themselves — not necessarily for others — to wear to concerts and other seasonal events.
“We are in the urban fashion business, so we’re selling key items to end consumers, we’re not necessarily selling gifts.” he said. “We’re selling outfits to people who are going to parties and concerts and who want to look good for the holiday season, so subsequently the business is strong if you have the right products.”