Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 22, 1990 TAG: 9007220074
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARIANN CAPRINO ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Medium
To put it bluntly, "as their pocketbooks have gotten thicker, so have their waists," said Alan Millstein, publisher of the New York-based newsletter Fashion Network Report.
Jeans don't fit the lives of the thirtysomething generation, which is starting to confront the flab of middle age and facing the fact that "gravity is the reality," Millstein says.
The biggest fans of jeans, traditionally tight-fitting, youth-oriented fare, are those between the ages of 14 and 24, a segment of the population that has been shrinking for the past decade, said Dan Chew, marketing manager for Levi Strauss & Co., headquartered in San Francisco.
Jeanswear Communications, a New York-based fashion industry group, said in a study released in June that total domestic jeans sales dropped from a 1981 peak of 502 million pairs to 387 million pairs in 1989.
Deborah Bronston, an analyst at Prudential-Bache Securities Inc., estimates the number of jeans sold declined by 6 percent during the first three months of this year alone.
The decline of jeans has forced manufacturers to scramble for ways to protect their domain, often with other products ranging from children's sweat gear to sexy lingerie. They have met with varying degrees of success. Some have been wounded because they responded to changing tastes too late.
VF Corp., a Wyomissing, Pa., jeans maker that markets Lee and Wrangler brands and holds about 25 percent of the U.S. market, recently announced it would close four jeans factories by September.
Levi Strauss, on the other hand, is riding high. The company has dramatically improved sales and profitability since it became a private company five years ago in a debt-financed takeover. The improvement has come from much more than just sales of the 501, its classic 5-pocketed blue jeans.
Levi's created Dockers, a cotton twill pant for "maturing" baby boom men. As one of retailing's brightest success stories, sales of Dockers went from $35 million in 1986 to a projected $500 million-plus this year. The product line has been expanded to include men's shirts and sweats as well as active wear for women and children.
Levi Strauss also has strengthened its jeans business by offering a range of styles and fits for baby boomers, who may have lost their physiques but not their desire for denim.
For VF, however, diversification has been far rockier. The company purchased a North Carolina maker of men's cotton twill pants in 1984 but closed the unit two years later to focus on its acquisition of Blue Bell Holding Co., parent of Wrangler jeans, Jantzen swimwear and Jansport sports clothes.
The move shoved VF ahead of Levi as the nation's biggest jeans maker. "When jeans are booming, every age group is wearing them," said VF's chief financial officer, Jerry Johnson. But these days, he said, there's "a lack of fashionability attached to the product."
This year VF has introduced a line of T-shirts and sweats under the Lee label in an effort to exploit its best brand name. So far sales are going "very well," and the sweat shirts have sold out, Johnson said.
Many experts said jeans makers are hoping to strengthen their dungaree business by exporting. While interest may be waning in the United States, jeans still retain considerable allure in the Soviet Union, parts of Europe and the Far East.
But Levi's strategists also say the U.S. market can't be ignored. The average American teen-ager still buys four to six pairs of jeans a year. So Levi's is spending heavily on a fresh advertising campaign directed by and featuring Spike Lee, acclaimed director of "Do the Right Thing."
Designer jeans, from Calvin Klein, Gloria Vanderbilt and others, are partly responsible for expanding the acceptance of blue jeans as appropriate dress for many occasions. But even at their peak in 1984, designer products accounted for less than 4 percent of the total blue jean market, Chew said.
Nonetheless, some designer labels have managed to adapt to a changing marketplace. Guess? Inc., for example, which sells a basic $56, 3-zip jean (one zipper on the fly, one on each ankle because the pants are so tight), continues to drum up interest in its broader array of clothes.
Skin-tight jeans were the cornerstone product when Guess? was founded in 1981. But the company now sells everything from miniskirts to fragrances in an effort to "capture the customer who has needs other than denim," said spokeswoman Leah Levy.
by CNB