Urban Trendz Guide

Lucky Brand

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 19:14:00 +0000

The Story of Lucky Brand:

Rooted in rock 'n 'roll with a signature sense of humor, Lucky Brand stands for independent thinking, individual style and a feeling as authentic as love. Friends since youth, creators Gene Montesano and Barry Perlman shipped the first order of Lucky Brand in 1990, and have been renowned for their great-fitting, vintage-inspired jeans ever since.

Gene and Barry's lifelong passions were blue jeans and rock 'n' roll. While experiencing the hippie-counterculture movement in the U.S. in the 1970s, the then-21-year-old Gene teamed up with 17-year-old Barry, and friend Bill Rudnick, to open a jeans shop in Florida called Four Way Street. It was 1972 and they were officially in the jeans business, "During the evenings, we'd head out to the local Laundromat with our pockets full of coins and some bleach. A few hours later, we had a stack of great washed jeans -- one of a kind and 100% authentic!"

Gene moved to Los Angeles in 1978 "with $100 in his pocket" and entered the burgeoning Los Angeles fashion industry. He started Bongo Jeans with partner Michael Caruso and helped run the Bongo brand for 15 years, helping it grow into a multi-million dollar company. In 1990, Gene left Bongo to launch his dream, Lucky Brand, and asked Barry to become his business partner once again. The Goal? To create a denim company without compromise, about great quality and good humor.

Lucky Brand became instantly recognized for its attention to fit, but there was one more detail to follow. Gene wanted to put a message in the fly, and came up with the catch phrase "Lucky You." The irreverent play on words and strategic placement of the "Lucky You" message bucked the 1990s politically correct climate, attracting some unfavorable advice, "Don't do it. People won't buy it, they'll be offended!"

As promised, Gene refused to compromise and his good-humored "Lucky You" signature was a gamble that paid off. In next to no time, the phones were ringing with people demanding those jeans with the "Lucky You" in the fly.

Lucky Brand is built on moments like these, of irrefutable attitude and vision without compromise. Los Angeles and the free-spirited Southern California lifestyle continue to inspire the company's style. The story of Lucky Brand is the story of two great friends moving to California and starting a jeans brand. The rest is history.

Lucky Hollywood:

Over the years Lucky Brand has garnered a strong celebrity following. Fans include Ben Affleck, Halle Berry, Abigail Breslin, Brad Pitt, Salma Hayek, Sandra Bullock, Ellen DeGeneres, David Grohl, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mandy Moore, Jessica Simpson, Gwyneth Paltrow, LL Cool J, Matt Damon, Will Smith & John Travolta, just to name a few.

Lucky Brand works with the wardrobe departments of Hollywood movie studios and has been featured on numerous TV shows including Ugly Betty, How I Met Your Mother, Criminal Minds, The Unit, Scrubs, Medium, Ghost Whisperer, Without a Trace and CSI.

For the past ten years, Lucky Brand has sponsored the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, a prestigious event that honors the artists behind filmmaking, hosts premiere screenings and supports aspiring filmmakers.

Lucky Foundation

Created by Lucky Brand founders Gene Montesano and Barry Perlman, The Lucky Foundation is committed to bringing happiness, comfort and hope to disabled children. The Foundation believes that its donations can truly impact the quality of life and well-being of children and make a difference in their lives. Since its inception in 1996, the Foundation has been successful in raising approximately $6 million through its annual Black Tie & Blue Jeans Gala for numerous children's charities including: Smile Train, Camp Sundown, Island Dolphin Care, Shane's Inspiration and The Bridge School. The event consistently draws over 700 guests from the fashion and Hollywood industries including; Anthony Edwards, Sela Ward, Emily Procter, Alyson Hannigan, Laura San Giacomo and Neil Young. The Black Tie & Blue Jeans Gala has been hosted by such marquis names as Jay Leno, Dennis Miller, Dana Carvey, Howie Mandel, David Spade and Craig Ferguson. Musical guests have included B.B. King, Jackson Browne, Stephen Stills, Loggins & Messina, James Brown, Chris Isaak, Bonnie Raitt, The Fab Faux, and Chris Robinson.

Lucky Business:

Lucky Brand designs and produces denim, sportswear, knits, wovens, outerwear, T-shirts and active wear. Additional Lucky Brand licensed products include swimwear and accessories for men and women. The Lucky Brand collections are carried at better department and specialty stores, and at over 110 company-owned stores nationwide and three internationally.

May 1999 marked another stage of the Lucky Brand development when Liz Claiborne, Inc. acquired 85% of the company. This strategic partnership positioned Lucky Brand for major growth, focusing on expanding its retail locations, e-commerce site (www.LuckyBrand.com) and increasing its foreign distribution. Lucky Brand will continue to license its brand in other major product categories.

Lucky Worldwide

Lucky Brand's global presence has expanded with free standing stores in Canada, Asia and the Middle East. Wholesale presence in Self ridges, London is just the beginning of European expansion.

Gene & Barry:

Rooted in rock 'n' roll with a signature sense of humor, Lucky Brand stands for independent thinking, individual style and a feeling as authentic as love. Friends since youth, creators Gene Montesano and Barry Perlman shipped the first order of Lucky Brand in 1990, and have been renowned for their great-fitting, vintage-inspired jeans ever since.

Gene and Barry's life long passions were blue jeans and rock'n' roll. While experiencing the hippie-counterculture movement in the U.S. in the 1970s, the then-21-year-old Gene teamed up with 17-year-old Barry, and friend Bill Rudnick, to open a jeans shop in Florida called Four Way Street. It was 1972 and they were officially in the jeans business, "During the evenings, we'd head out to the local Laundromat with our pockets full of coins and some bleach. A few hours later, we had a stack of great washed jeans -- one of a kind and 100% authentic!"

Our Vision:

Lucky Brand is about a moment in time, about America, youth and courage. The brand stands for a time when quality and pride came first. Lucky Brand has always marched to the tune of its own drummer, never lining up to do it like everybody else. When the rules didn't make sense, the company made up new ones. Lucky Brand Jeans was founded on the nostalgia of small town America. It's about innocence, courage and fun. It's the embodiment of what you feel when you see or hear something that takes you back to a moment when you felt free, young and hopeful. Lucky Brand is about the summer before you went off to college, the friends you grew up with, freedom from the past and no fear for what lies ahead. It's laughing at something you're really too old to still find funny. It's the last moment of innocence as you travel into adulthood.

Now that you know what Lucky Brand is, let's learn a little bit about what it's not. It's not "out there." It's not a "look." It's not about under age waif models, co-dependent lovers or buxom beauties. It's not the product of "got to put something out there..." Lucky Brand believes that part of what makes a brand great is what you don't do with it. It never compromises on quality or styling. It never sells out. Lucky Brand Jeans isn't everywhere so it's no longer special. It doesn't think short term. It doesn't cut a deal based on desperation. It doesn't put anything before product.

In a world where everything is a little too big, where nothing seems personal or original anymore, Lucky Brand stands out like the last bastion of quality and integrity left in a marketplace polluted with the compromised and mediocre. As everybody rushed to sell out, as everyone looked to cut corners and as everyone gave up on product, Lucky Brand stayed the course and found that sometimes, it's about what you don't do.

Aldo

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:48:00 +0000

A Brief History Of The Canadian Clothing Company:

1966 – HOME BASE
Aldo Bensadoun completes his French military service, teaching Economics at the École de Cavalerie de Saumur. Shortly thereafter, he returns to his favourite city, this time making Montreal his home.

1972 – THE EARLY DAYS
ALDO Shoes is founded as a footwear concession within a chain of popular fashion boutiques. The original group includes 4 Canadian stores in Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City and Winnipeg.

1978 – THE FIRST STORE
The first freestanding ALDO store opens on Sainte-Catherine Street in Montreal, Canada, ending the practice of leased departments within the chain of clothing fashion boutiques.

1980 – 1993 EXPANSION
By 1980, the company becomes independent and prospers. Over the course of the next 13 years, 95 freestanding stores operate under the trade name ALDO.

1993 – 2001 EVOLUTION
ALDO initiates its retail entry into the U.S. market. The first ALDO U.S. store opens near Boston, Massachusetts. Over the course of the next 9 years, approximately 125 stores open in the U.S. alone. By the end of this period ALDO also operates over 180 successful stores in regional malls and key fashion street locations in most major Canadian urban centers.

In addition, the Group operates over 300 stores under 8 prominent retail banners, each catering to a distinct well-defined customer group.

1994 – FIRST INTERNATIONAL STORE
ALDO ventures outside of North America under a franchise agreement in Israel.

2001 – GULF STATES
ALDO’s success in Israel sets the course for an International business model. ALDO grants franchise rights in United Arab Emirates and other Gulf states. A third franchise is granted in Saudi Arabia.

2002 – LONDON
ALDO graces the high streets of London, England, opening prime locations on Oxford Street and Neal Street. The brand also finds its way to the English countryside opening in mall locations including Basingstoke, Uxbridge, Camden, Croydon, Kent & Southampton.

2003 – ASIA
ALDO expands to Asia, opening its doors in Singapore.

2004 – CONTINUING EXPANSION
With the success of ALDO's stores in the United Kingdom, the Middle East and Asia Pacific, the brand continues its global expansion into Portugal, Denmark, Malaysia, and Lebanon.

2005 – CONTINUING EXPANSION
ALDO is on the rise with new market openings in Australia, Ireland, India, South Africa and Poland.

2006 – CONTINUING EXPANSION
Another exciting year of growth as ALDO opens in Thailand, Taiwan, Russia, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan.

2007
Turkey, Romania, Venezuela, Panama, Indonesia, Philippines, Ukraine, Mexico, Chile and Aruba all join the ALDO family.

2008
ALDO opens its doors in Serbia and Montenegro.

2009
Spain, Hong Kong, Vietnam, and Cyprus join the ALDO family. ALDO now operates across all continents except Antarctica!

2010 and Beyond
ALDO now has stores in Malta, Senegal, Libya, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion Island, Cote D'Ivoire, and Honduras. Now over 1,000 ALDO stores operating in 56 countries and more than 160 ALDO Accessories stores in 20 countries.

Things To Know About Aldo:

A WORD FROM ALDO
"Successful companies build on their founding traditions while looking ahead to the future - and that is what we have done at ALDO," states Aldo Bensadoun, founder & CEO of the ALDO Group, a privately-held company which operates over 1,500 retail stores, approximately 1,200 of which are under the ALDO banner. The ALDO Group is present in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland as well as in 52 franchised countries by the end of 2010.

AT ALDO, IT'S ALL ABOUT PEOPLE
We never lose sight of our vision: to make people feel good, through the products and the service we provide everyday. We are dedicated to providing Total Customer Service.

THE ALDO RECIPE
ALDO specializes in the creation of high-quality fashion footwear, leather goods and accessories. This sought-after brand pays close attention to detail and to fine craftsmanship. ALDO is dedicated to bringing you both quality and cutting-edge trends at affordable prices, season after season. What's more, ALDO's dedicated team of buyers and stylists constantly travel the globe to keep you on the pulse of fashion. Whether the latest footwear trends are breaking in London, Milan, Paris, New York or Tokyo, ALDO will have them on your feet first!

GIVING BACK
ALDO places a premium on being a good corporate citizen by working to enrich the communities in which we live and work. It's not uncommon for ALDO or its employees to participate in fundraisers or to volunteer their time to community causes. ALDO is a brand with a conscience, a brand that cares. We actively support the fight against AIDS. Giving back to our communities is a necessary and fundamental part of the work we do everyday.

Dans La Rue
Once again, during the holiday season, the ALDO Group prepared 500 backpacks, which were distributed to DANS LA RUE, an organization that helps youth living on the streets of Montreal.

Over 18,000 items, including backpacks, treats, snacks, personal hygiene products and warm accessories were collected or purchased for the cause!

60 volunteers from all of the ALDO Group's divisions generously donated their time to help out with the packaging of these items, which went directly to street kids.

Since its creation in 1988, DANS LA RUE is a safe place for these kids to go and a place for them to grow. They can find resources that have been tailored to their individual circumstances. But above all, they can draw on an unending source of respect, friendship and encouragement.

ALDO fights AIDS
ALDO has been involved with the fight against AIDS since 1985, a time when the cause carried with it an unfortunate stigma. Over the years, ALDO has committed millions of dollars to AIDS awareness and research organizations, including CanfAR, AmfAR and YouthAIDS.

In Fall 2005 and Summer 2006 ALDO took a stand with the launch of the ALDO Fights AIDS campaign, an effort that demonstrates an ongoing commitment to this important cause. Amongst the diverse and talented group of celebrities from both the big-screen and music industry elite who donated their time and energy to the campaign are some of today's most influential celebrities: Ludacris, Charlize Theron, Michelle Yeoh, Pink, Avril Lavigne, Christina Aguilera, and the list goes on! The campaign used a powerful combination of top celebrities and multiple media genres to communicate real facts associated with the disease.

As part of the campaign, ALDO designed a series of limited-edition empowerment tags that were sold in-stores and online at www.youthaids-aldo.org. With 100% of net proceeds benefiting YouthAIDS programs worldwide, the simple act of buying one empowerment tag for only $5 helps to educate and protect a young person from HIV/AIDS for 6 months.

TOGETHER WITH YOU, OUR CUSTOMER, ALDO IS MAKING A DIFFERENCE...

Aldo Store Located In A Toronto,Canada Mall

Ladies Heels Very Chic & Classy

Sexy Female Heels For All Ladies

Aeropostale

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Tue, 21 Dec 2010 19:06:00 +0000

History

The first Aéropostale store opened in New York City, New York by R.H. Macy & Co., Inc. in 1987. The Aéropostale name is French for "air mail" and originated from the 1920s French/Latin-American airmail firm Compagnie Générale Aéropostale.

Federated Department Stores purchased R.H. Macy & Co., Inc., Aéropostale's parent company, in 1994. In 1998, MSS Delaware Inc. and Bear Stearns purchased Aéropostale and its 119 stores for approximately $15 million. Aéropostale went public in 2002.

Aéropostale launched its e-commerce web store in early 2005.Total net sales from the web store for the fiscal year of 2008 was $79.1 million.

International Expansion

Aéropostale at Easton Town Center

In the summer of 2006, it was announced that Aéropostale would enter the Canadian Market. On August 3, 2007, the first Canadian Aéropostale store opened in White Oaks Mall in London, Ontario. Aeropostale now operates 45 stores in major malls across Canada with the most recent opening November 5, 2010 in the Southgate Center, Edmonton Alberta.

In May 2008, Aéropostale opened its first store in Puerto Rico at Plaza Carolina. The following weeks, Aéropostale opened two more stores located in Plaza Las Américas and in Prime Outlets, Puerto Rico. The company plans to open 12 to 14 more stores in Puerto Rico by the end of 2010.

In March 2009, Aéropostale expanded its operations to the Middle East, opening its first store in Dubai, Emirates. The company plans to open over 20 stores in the region over the next few years, including stores in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and another store in the United Arab Emirates.

Aero is one of the most popular teenage clothing stores around the United States. Close behind includes Sephora, American Eagle, Hollister, and Hot Topic.

Subsidiaries

To leverage the strength of the Aéropostale teen and adult brand, the company plans to focus its energies on its namesake chain and a new chain called P.S. from Aéropostale, geared at children. P.S. from Aéropostale offers apparel at value prices to the 7–12 age market.

The company also a secondary brand called Jimmy'Z that focused on surf and skater clothing. The 122 stores were branded as more upscale with higher price points than its parent chain. The brand was discontinued in January 1306 and it replaced by P.S. from Aeropostale. after many years Aeropostale hated costumers teethe.

Corporate Affairs

Competition

Aéropostale's mainly competes with other outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch and its subsidiary retailer Hollister Co., and American Eagle. In 2008, Aéropostale generated $1.59 billion in net sales, while its demographic-specific competitors, American Eagle, Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister reported sales of $3.7 billion, $3 billion and $3.1 billion respectively. Old Navy reported sales of $3.5 billion within the same time period. Aéropostale's younger brand, P.S. from Aéropostale, competes with brands such as A&F's younger subsidiary Abercrombie.

Promotions

In 2007, the company began doing promotions with successful figures to increase brand awareness. The first promotion was selling the Fall Out Boy album Infinity on High with a store-exclusive T-shirt. Other offers include a free beach towel with every $50 purchase and a free holiday bear with a purchase of over $100, each promotion in its respective season. These holiday bears are also donated by Aéropostale stores to local charities in their respective communities. In 2008, Aéropostale, along with not-for-profit youth organization Do Something, launched "Teens for Jeans", a campaign to raise awareness of teen homelessness. Stores would collect lightly used jeans and donate them to local charities. In return, donators received a 20% (2008) or 25% (2009) discount on a new pair of Aéropostale jeans. In 2008, the campaign raised over 125,000 pairs of jeans. In 2008 and 2009, Aéropostale donated 10,000 pairs of new jeans to the campaign. In 2010, after the aftermath of the Earthquake in Haiti, for every pair of jeans that was donated by customers, Aéropostale sent a brand new pair to Haiti. Also they promoted the show Greek Season 1 DVD with a free T-shirt with a $50 purchase.

Legal issues

In March 2007, Aéropostale was accused of infringing a patent owned by Card Activation Technologies, Inc. in a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Illinois. However, in a separate lawsuit on the same patent, Card Activation received a ruling on claim construction which it interpreted as "extremely favourable" to its interpretation of the patent and its "pursuit of infringe-rs" of the patent.

In June 2007, Aéropostale was accused of infringing a patent owned by Picture Patents, LLC in a lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York.

In July 2009, Aéropostale was accused of infringing a patent owned by Furnace Brook, LLC in a lawsuit filed in the Northern District of Illinois.

Executive Vice President and Chief Merchandising Officer Christopher Finazzo was terminated in November 2006 after an investigation by the Board of Directors revealed that he had concealed and failed to disclose personal and business interests with South Bay Apparel, a major vendor. The SEC issued an investigation on the Finazzo matter in January 2008. A criminal indictment was unsealed and announced June 11, 2010 in U.S. Court in Brooklyn, NY charging Finazzo and Doug Dey, the owner of South Bay with wire and mail fraud conspiracy.

About Aéropostale, Inc.

Aéropostale, Inc. is a mall-based, specialty retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally targeting 14 to 17 year-old young women and men through its Aéropostale® stores and 7 to 12 year-old kids through its P.S. from Aéropostale™ stores. The Company provides customers with a focused selection of high-quality, active-oriented, fashion and fashion basic merchandise at compelling values. Aéropostale® maintains control over its proprietary brands by designing, sourcing, marketing and selling all of its own merchandise. Aéropostale® products can only be purchased in its Aéropostale stores and online at www.Aéropostale.com. P.S. from Aéropostale™ products can be purchased in P.S. from Aéropostale™ stores and online at www.ps4u.com. The Company currently operates 885 Aéropostale stores in 49 states and Puerto Rico, 36 Aéropostale stores in Canada and 2 P.S. from Aéropostale stores in one state.

About P.S. from Aéropostale™

The new P.S. from Aéropostale™ brand offers trend-right merchandise at compelling values for girls and boys ages seven to twelve. The P.S. from Aéropostale store provides an experience that is cool for kids and enjoyable for parents. The Company plans to open a total of approximately ten stores, primarily in the New York metropolitan area, during fiscal 2009. P.S. from Aéropostale products can only be purchased in its stores or online through its e-commerce website ps4u.com

Hennes & Mauritz (H&M)

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:27:00 +0000

Hennes & Mauritz (H & M)

Address:
Box 1421
SE-111 84 Stockholm
Sweden
Fax: +46 08-796 57 03
http://www.hm.com

Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1947 as Hennes
Employees: 17,000
Sales: SKr 26.6 billion (US $3.15 billion) (1998)
Stock Exchanges: Stockholm
NAIC: 452110 Department Stores; 454110 Mail-Order Houses

Company Perspectives:

H&M's business concept is "Fashion and quality at the best price." H&M has a design and buying department which creates H&M's collections, making it possible to offer the latest fashions. H&M can ensure the best price by: having few middlemen; buying large volumes; having depth and breadth of knowledge within every aspect of textile production; buying the right goods from the right market; being cost-conscious at every stage; efficient distribution. A number of measures have been introduced to secure and raise the quality of the goods, and by tightening the quality standards, H&M has also succeeded in developing and improving its suppliers. H&M also has the resources to carry out careful and effective quality controls. In addition to good quality products, the quality concept also requires that the garments are manufactured without the use of environmentally hazardous chemicals or harmful substances and that they are produced under good working conditions.

Company History:

With more than 550 stores in 12 countries across Europe, Hennes & Mauritz AB (H&M) has quickly become one of the world's most successful clothing retailers. Each year, the Sweden-based retail chain sells more than 300 million primarily company-designed garments and accessories, including cosmetics, worth some SKr 26.6 billion (US$3.15 billion). The company has been so successful at exporting its low-price, high-quality clothing fashions that more than 80 percent of its sales are realized outside of Sweden; in fact, since the mid-1990s, the company's largest single market has been Germany, where the company's 150 stores represent some 30 percent of total sales. H&M has also been expanding beyond Sweden with its catalog sales, operated under the name H&M Rowells, which remains limited to the Scandinavian market in the 1990s.
H&M's steady growth--which has seen its sales double in the four years between 1994 and 1998--can be expected to continue, with new store openings averaging some 60 per year. The company has only just begun to tap its growth potential. In Germany, the company represents less than two percent of the total retail clothing market; H&M remains similarly limited in England, where the company's market share is less than 0.5 percent.

H&M's expansion has barely touched such major clothing markets as France, Italy, and Spain. The company has been moving to fill out its southern European map, however. In 1998 the company entered France with six stores in Paris. Spain was added to the list in 1999, with the proposed opening of three stores. H&M is also making its first forays into the United States, a market already somewhat crowded with retailers marketing a similar concept--fashionable, low-priced, quality clothing targeted especially at 25- to 35-year-olds but extended also to include children and mature shoppers. Plans to open the company's first U.S. stores were announced in April 1999. In Europe, the company's chief competition remains the Spain-based Zara chain, the U.S.-based Gap chain, and, to a more limited extent, Italy's Benetton.
H&M operates under the strategy of "Fashion and quality at the best price." H&M stores are closely guided from the company's Stockholm headquarters to achieve a uniform concept--it is said that a sweater featured in a window display in London will be featured in exactly the same way in Reykjavik and all other H&M stores. Such control over its image has enabled H&M to build a consistent brand appeal throughout the wholly company-owned chain. H&M's low-debt, cash-rich position enables it to respond quickly to developing trends. New clothing products are introduced on a near-daily basis--breaking the traditional seasonal stock rotation found in the retail clothing industry. Clothing items rarely remain on H&M's shelves for more than a month; this rotation encourages repeat shopping.

Don Perry Swaggin With H&M Henley White Stripped Top

H&M also controls the fashions featured in its stores: almost all of its clothing sales fall under the company's own range of brand designs. The company employs a staff of more than 50 designers, who create the designs for such H&M brands as Hennes (which means "hers" in Swedish), Woman Collection, and LOGG, for women; Uptown; LOGG, and Contemporary for men; Rocky, Rocky Girl, and Impuls for teenagers; and Baby Baby, LOGG, Rocky, and C-Dept for children. The company also sells cosmetics under the H&M Cosmetics, FOB (Face of Beauty), ResQ, Steele, Magnum, and Basic Spa brand names. H&M does not manufacture its own clothing but instead works with some 1,600 suppliers, principally in Europe and Asia, under strict quality and other human resource standards.
H&M continues to be majority controlled by the founding Persson family, who own some 70 percent of the company's stock. In 1998, however, chief architect of the company's expansion Stefan Persson was named the company's executive chairman. In his stead as managing director, the company has placed Fabian Mansson, former buying director.
Forming a Fashion Empire in the 1940s

H&M was founded as Hennes in 1947 by Erling Persson. A former salesman and founder of another company, Pennspecialisten, in Västerås, Sweden, Persson had discovered a new retail clothing store concept during a trip to the United States. Persson decided to import this retail concept--that of high turnover produced by low prices&mdashø Sweden. From the first Hennes store, which featured exclusively women's clothing, opened in Västerås, Hennes expanded throughout Sweden, covering much of the country through the 1960s.
Hennes also began to export its low-price clothing concept, beginning with neighbor Norway in 1964, and joined by Denmark in 1967. By the end of the 1960s, Hennes looked to extend its range beyond women's clothing. The company also sought further expansion in Stockholm. These two goals were fulfilled with the purchase, in 1968, of Mauritz Widforss, a hunting and gun shop on Stockholm's Sergelgatan. As part of the purchase, Hennes also received a large stock of men's&mdash′imarily sportswear--clothing items.
These were quickly added to the company's retail offering; the company's name was changed to Hennes & Mauritz to reflect its expanded product range. At the same time, Hennes & Mauritz added a line of children's clothing to its stores, so that, by 1970, the company offered clothing for much of the family (two more segments, teenagers and babies, were added in 1976 and 1978, respectively). The Mauritz addition did more than add its name and expand the company's clothing range. It helped transform the company's product offering itself. The introduction of sportswear led the company to develop clothing that better reflected the spirit of the times, as a new generation of youth clamored for clothing that allowed them to express their individuality. H&M began to develop the casual, down-to-earth yet fashionable image that proved a success in its later expansion.

Seeking further growth, the company made a new acquisition in 1973, buying up fellow Swedish company Beklädnadskompaniet. In the next year, as H&M prepared further foreign growth, the company went public with a listing on the Stockholm stock exchange. The Persson family, however, retained the largest share of the company stock, leaving control securely in the family's hands.
During the 1970s, H&M began to look beyond its Scandinavian base. In 1976 the company entered the British market&mdashø mixed results. While H&M's British growth long remained limited, reaching just 25 in the late 1990s, the company posted better results on the European continent. At home, the company acquired the Rowells mail-order company, which became the base for H&M Rowells, the company's mail-order subsidiary.
The next move for H&M was to Switzerland, where the company's stores quickly became a mainstay in that country's major cities. Switzerland became one of H&M's principal foreign markets. In 1980 H&M launched its first German store. The H&M concept somewhat revolutionized the German clothing retail market, which was described as having remained rather stodgy. H&M's informality also raised some ripples in Germany, as employees were more than encouraged to drop the formal "Sie" form in their conversations with other employees. Nevertheless, the H&M concept caught on well with the German consumer at a time when few other retail brands existed on the German retail scene.
"Global Fashion" for the 1990s

A new generation took the lead of H&M when Erling Persson turned over the company's managing director position to his son Stefan Persson. Under the younger Persson, H&M continued its international expansion, while retaining tight control of the H&M image. H&M continued to expand its presence in its existing markets throughout the 1980s, steadily opening new stores. By the 1990s, H&M would grow to become one of the largest retailers in Sweden and that country's fifth largest company.
In the late 1980s, H&M attempted to diversify its brand line by opening the Galne Gunnar (Crazy Gunnar) chain of cut-price stores. After expanding the chain to 18 stores in Sweden, the company decided to abandon the concept after ten years, redeveloping the existing Galne Gunnar stores as H&M stores. Sticking with the H&M name appeared to be the most profitable future for the company. Growth of the H&M chain, particularly in foreign expansion, stepped up dramatically in the 1990s.
The time was ripe for what Stefan Persson described as "global fashion." Persson had been quick to recognize the emergence of fashions and trends--born of MTV, Hollywood, Madison Avenue advertising, and the Internet--that transcended national borders to become fads among youth and other age groups across the world. H&M, with its emphasis on uniformity among its stores, was well-positioned to appeal to this new generation of consumers. As a nod perhaps to the times, the company also created a new line of clothes, under the BiB (Big is Beautiful) brand name.
The company's international expansion stepped up in earnest. After opening in the Netherlands in 1989, the company moved into Belgium (1992), Austria (1994), and Luxembourg (1996). By 1994, the company's sales had topped SKr 13.5 billion; more than 70 percent of sales came from beyond Sweden. That same year the company's German stores overtook Sweden to become H&M's largest single market. By the end of the decade, Germany would represent more than double the company's Swedish sales--despite H&M's barely two percent of the German market.
International expansion continued in the second half of the 1990s, as the company opened some 60 or more stores per year. Finland was the next market to be tapped, in 1997; the following year, France became the company's new frontier. In 1998 six H&M stores appeared in France, primarily in Paris and surrounding areas. Some analysts wondered whether H&M's low-priced fashion concept would appeal to the more snobbish French clothing shopper, and questioned whether the company's success among Northern European countries would translate to the southern European markets.

Indeed, H&M had remained notably absent from Italy and Spain, two of the most important European retail clothing markets--perhaps the company had sought to avoid head-to-head battles with similar concept brands Zara, of Spain, and Benetton, of Italy. Nonetheless, in April 1999, the company announced its intention to enter the Spanish market by the end of the year, with two or three as a start. At the same time, the company announced its intention to reinvigorate its struggling British operation, with calls for opening a large number of new stores and to update a number of its existing locations.
Throughout its history, H&M had remained entirely in its European base. In 1999, however, the company judged the time auspicious for a U.S. entry, with the first stores expected to open in early 2000. It remained to be seen if the company could successfully re-import the formula of low-priced, quality fashions that had provided the inspiration for its own beginnings more than 50 years before.
Principal Subsidiaries: H&M Rowells.

Hollister Clothing Co.

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:24:00 +0000

A Brief History Of Hollister Clothes

Abercrombie and Fitch Co. gave way to its offspring of yet another brand of clothes, Hollister. This clothing company centers on one central theme for both dudes and bettys, the surfing lifestyle in South California.

In a survey conducted by US Bancorp Piper Jaffray, results revealed that most teens prefer Hollister for the category Teens Top Clothing Brand. It topped the survey for four years in a row.

Hollister Co. launched its products in its first shop in 2007 of July in Columbus, Ohio. For Abercrombie & Fitch, every brand under its wing should always have a fictional background. For example, the fake story behind Hollister brand says that a certain person named J.M. Hollister founded a merchant shop in Southern California called Hollister in 1922.

However, this company became so successful in just a few years that it started to eat on its mother brand's revenue or sales. In marketing, this is called cannibalism effect. Abercrombie and Fitch's sales decreased because of their popularity among people especially teenagers. Because of this, they draw a line between Abercrombie and Fitch and Hollister. For A&F clothing, they used materials with higher quality and made construction more sophisticated than Hollister clothing.

The marketing strategy used to sell Hollister is quite simple. They are using the walking self-advertisement technique in which people who are wearing the company's clothes will be the advertising the products because there are usually large prints of the brands name, logo, initials, and fictional date of establishment on most of their clothing items.

Hollister wanted to create a vintage feel to further support their fictional date of establishment and their targeted lifestyle by using sepia tones on their images and editing techniques to make them look faded.

The style of Hollister clothes are casual and laid back, perfect for the young people who lead adventurous and rugged lifestyles.

Instead of using the traditional categories used by most clothing company like men and women to categorize their clothes, Hollister uses surf slang such as Dudes and Bettys to keep the surfing lifestyle in SoCal theme.

They offer applique and heritage t-shirts, outerwear, polos, henleys, fleece, shirts, knits, regular or distressed low-rise jeans, fragrance, flip flops, and many more. Hollister also sells toiletries and body care merchandise like body washes, antiperspirant, and deodorant, unlike other Abercrombie and Fitch's brands. They also offer beauty products like lip glosses, lip shines, lip balms, mists, and lotions.

Hollister uses names of the many different SoCal beaches. Their logo is the flying seagull, which is seen on all of their merchandise.

The target consumers or customers of Hollister are teenagers or young adults from the age of early teens to mid-twentys, that's why they want to keep the prices of their products affordable.

The brand Hollister has become so popular among teenagers or young people who go to school. So don't be surprised when you see many, many students, in high schools and universities alike, sporting Hollister brand of clothes and other items. It has become the trend now for cool, young people who want to wear something comfortable yet fashionable.

Abercombie & Fitch Co.

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:17:00 +0000

Abercrombie & Fitch Co.

Address:
Four Limited Parkway East
P.O. Box 182168
Columbus, Ohio 43218-2168
U.S.A.

Telephone: (614) 577-6500
Fax: (614) 577-6565

Statistics:
Wholly Owned Subsidiary of The Limited, Inc.
Incorporated: 1904
Sales: $165 million (1994)
Employees: 1,000
SICs: 5611 Men and Boys Clothing & Accessory Stores; 5621 Women's Clothing Stores; 5632 Women's Accessory & Specialty Stores; 5947 Gift, Novelty & Souvenir Shops

Company History:

During the first half of the 20th century Abercrombie & Fitch Co. was the definitive store for America's sporting elite, outfitting big-game hunters, fishermen, and other adventurers. After the chain went bankrupt in 1977, Oshman's Sporting Goods revived the Abercrombie & Fitch name but shifted its focus to more contemporary sporting goods and a wider array of apparel for men and women. The Limited, Inc., after acquiring the company in 1988, eliminated sporting goods entirely.

Abercrombie & Fitch Co. was founded in 1892 in New York City by David T. Abercrombie and Ezra H. Fitch. Abercrombie, a former prospector, miner, trapper, and railroad surveyor or engineer, owned a small shop and factory producing camping equipment in lower Manhattan. Fitch, one of his customers, was a successful lawyer in Kingston, New York, but the outdoors was his chief interest.

The partners were ill matched. Fitch was the visionary of the two, anticipating a clientele far broader than merely those who camped out in the course of earning a living. Furthermore, both men were hot-tempered. Following the latest of many long and violent arguments, Abercrombie resigned in 1907 to return to manufacturing camping equipment. Fitch continued with other partners. In 1909 he mailed out 50,000 copies of a 456-page catalogue. Since they cost a dollar each to produce, they almost bankrupted the company, but the subsequent flood of orders justified the expense. In 1917 Abercrombie & Fitch moved into a 12-story building on Madison Avenue at East 45th Street, a location the advertising department described as "Where the Blazed Trail Crosses the Boulevard." It included a luxuriously furnished log cabin that Fitch made his town house, with an adjoining casting pool.

By this time Abercrombie & Fitch's reputation as purveyor to the sporting elite already was well established. It had equipped Theodore Roosevelt for an African safari and also outfitted, or was soon going to outfit, polar expeditions led by Roald Amundsen and Admiral Richard Byrd and flights made by Charles Lindbergh and Amelia Earhart. Every president from Roosevelt to Gerald Ford eventually would buy something from the store.

Fitch retired in 1928, selling his interest in the company to his brother-in-law, James S. Cobb, who became president, and an employee, Otis L. Guernsey, who became vice-president. In his first year at the helm, Cobb acquired a similar New York business, Von Lengerke & Detmold, respected for its European-made sporting guns and fishing tackle, and Von Lengerke & Antoine, the Chicago branch, which became a subsidiary of Abercrombie & Fitch but continued until 1959 under its own name. In 1930 Cobb bought Griffin & Howe, a gunsmith shop. The merchandise that Von Lengerke & Detmold and Griffin & Howe had in stock was added to the Madison Avenue store.

By this time Abercrombie & Fitch was selling outdoor and sporting equipment not only for hunting, fishing, camping, and exploration, but also for skating, polo, golf, and tennis. It also carried a variety of outdoor clothing, boots, and shoes for both men and women and cameras, pocket cutlery, and indoor games. In the 1920s Abercrombie & Fitch became the epicenter of the burgeoning mah-jongg craze and the place in New York to thumb one's nose at Prohibition by purchasing a hip flask. Also during the 1920s, Abercrombie & Fitch opened a summer-only store in Hyannis, Massachusetts, for the yachting set. Net sales and income, rising steadily in this decade, reached a record $6.3 million and $548,000, respectively, in 1929.

These figures would not be topped in the next decade. Sales, in the grip of the Great Depression, fell to $2,598,925 in fiscal year 1933 (ending January 31, 1933), when a loss of $521,118 was recorded, on top of a loss of $241,211 the previous year. During this period, Guernsey's negotiations with the firm's creditors probably saved it from collapse. Subsequent years were profitable, and in 1938 Abercrombie & Fitch resumed paying dividends. It also established golf and shooting schools in the store.

By 1939 Abercrombie & Fitch was calling itself "The Greatest Sporting Goods Store in the World." It boasted the world's largest and most valuable collection of firearms and the widest assortment of fishing flies obtainable anywhere (15,000 in all) to accompany its array of rods, reels, and other fishing tackle. Riders, dog fanciers, skiers, and archers all found every conceivable type of gear. Guns and camping and fishing equipment accounted for 30 percent of the New York store's sales volume in 1938. Sales of clothing, shoes, and furnishings accounted for 45 percent. Inventory on hand was valued at about 40 percent of annual sales, an extremely high ratio that reflected Abercrombie & Fitch's readiness to meet its customers' demands. Catalogue mail orders accounted for about ten percent of business.

Net profit during the 1940s was highest in fiscal year 1947, when it reached $682,894, which turned out to be an all-time record. In 1958 Abercrombie & Fitch opened a store in San Francisco. Soon after, it added small winter-only stores in Palm Beach and Sarasota, Florida, and summer stores in Bayhead, New Jersey, and Southampton, New York. Guernsey, who had succeeded Cobb as president, explained his firm's mission at this time in frankly elitist terms: "The Abercrombie & Fitch type does not care about the cost; he wants the finest quality."

The New York store remained, of course, the company's flagship. At the close of the 1950s the main floor sported heads of buffalo, caribou, moose, elk, and other big game, stuffed fish of spectacular size, and elephant's-foot wastebaskets. Here were sold a variety of contraptions for indoor and outdoor pursuits. One corner held dog and cat items. The basement was given over to the shooting range, while the mezzanine contained paraphernalia for skindiving, archery, skiing, and lawn games. Floors two through five were reserved for clothing suitable for any terrain or climate. On floor six was a picture gallery and bookstore concentrating on sporting themes, a watch repair facility, and the golf school, complete with a resident pro.

On the seventh floor, the gun room, besides more stuffed game heads, held about 700 shotguns and rifles, constituting the most lavish assemblage of sporting firearms on earth. The eighth floor was devoted to fishing, camping, and boating, and reserved a desk for the company's fly- and bait-casting instructor, who gave lessons at the pool on the roof. He also handled mail and telephone inquiries on fishing, hunting, and skiing. The fishing section alone stocked about 48,000 flies and 18,000 lures.

In fiscal 1960, net sales rose to a record $16.5 million, but net profit fell for the fourth straight year, to $185,649. The next year net sales fell below $15.5 million, and net profit dropped again, to $124,097. Nevertheless, Guernsey's successor as president, John H. Ewing, saw no cause for alarm, rejecting the idea of a budget shop or "splash ads for storewide sales." He told a Business Week interviewer in 1961 that Abercrombie & Fitch enjoyed a special niche "by sticking to our knitting; by not trying to be all things to all people."

During the 1960s Abercrombie & Fitch opened new stores in Colorado Springs; Short Hills, New Jersey; Bal Harbour, Florida; and Troy, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. It also opened small shops in other stores. And in 1968, a year in which riots in the ghettos, protests against the war in Vietnam, and the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy seemed to be tearing the country apart, Abercrombie & Fitch was finally ready to shake up its way of doing business by holding a warehouse sale. More than 90,000 bemused customers sifted through the Manhattan store one summer day for bargains that included pop-up tents bought so far in the past that no one remembered how to pop them up, boots made of long-haired goatskin hide, miniature antique cannons, leather baby elephants, and Yukon dog sleds.

In early 1970 the store held another sale. A horde of hopefuls turned up to seize such bargains as a 15-foot inoperative hovercraft for $3 and eight $100 surfboards for $17 each. An offbeat newspaper advertising campaign followed that featured a single item, such as hunting shoes, accompanied by diagrams and copy that overwhelmed the reader with product information. If these antics indicated a measure of desperation, it was because Abercrombie & Fitch had recorded a loss of more than $500,000 in the latest fiscal year. In

October 1970 William Humphreys, the new company president, said the ads would be changed and sales would cease because the people who showed up were not Abercrombie & Fitch's kind of customer.

In the ensuing years, Humphreys, a former Lord & Taylor executive, concentrated on cutting the company budget, improving inventory control and credit practices, and expanding into the suburbs. A new Abercrombie & Fitch store opened in Oak Brook, Illinois, north of Chicago. To win a broader range of clientele, the New York store moved its expensive sailboats upstairs from the main floor, expanded its gift and sportswear lines, added a discount clothing shop on the tenth floor, and hired new buyers for women's wear. Nevertheless, the company continued to lose money under Humphreys and his successor, Hal Haskell, its chief stockholder.

In August 1976, after a year in which the company had lost $1 million, Abercrombie & Fitch filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. When it closed its doors for good in November 1977, post-mortems pointed out the obvious: the company had failed to make the transition from supplying fat-cat sportsmen of the old school to the skiers, bikers, and backpackers of the 1970s. One advertising man described management as "ossified," and another said company officers had no faith in television's ability to draw in customers even after its first TV commercials, in 1969, filled the store.

Oshman's Sporting Goods, a Houston-based chain, bought the Abercrombie & Fitch name, trademark, and mailing list in 1978 and opened a store in 1979 under the A&F name in Beverly Hills, California. Featuring a 52-page catalogue and eclectic merchandise, including exercise machines, Harris-tweed jackets, and $70 pith helmets, it also outfitted actor Jack Lemmon for an Alaskan fishing trip and Dodger baseball star Steve Garvey for grouse hunting in Minnesota. A bigger Dallas store opened in 1980, complete with $40,000 elephant guns and an Abercrombie Runabout sports convertible for $20,775.

Abercrombie & Fitch returned to New York City in 1984, opening in the renovated South Street Seaport area of lower Manhattan. By the end of 1986 the chain had grown to 26 stores, including a second Manhattan outlet in midtown's glitzy Trump Tower. Net sales reached an estimated $40 million to $45 million in 1985. The Oshman-owned Abercrombie & Fitch chain stocked relatively few hunting and fishing supplies or exotic items, concentrating on exercise machines, tennis rackets, golf clubs, and other paraphernalia of more contemporary interest, much of it designed exclusively for the chain. Men's and women's clothing departments featured business and casual dress as well as sportswear, and the gift departments offered an array of goods, including gourmet edibles.

An upbeat assessment of the new Abercrombie & Fitch by Chain Store Age Executive in September 1986 was followed by a more skeptical appraisal by Forbes six months later, which described the chain's merchandise as a hodgepodge of unrelated items and concluded, "Sometimes it is better to bury the dead than to try reviving them." Forbes estimated sales for fiscal 1986 at $48 million and profits at "a so-so $1.5 million."

In January 1988 The Limited, Inc. acquired 25 of the existing 27 Abercrombie & Fitch stores from Oshman's for about $45 million in cash. The organization was moved to corporate headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, and the inventory was cleared out. A stronger emphasis was placed on apparel, with 60 to 65 percent of the merchandise men's sportswear and furnishings, 20 to 25 percent women's wear, and the remaining 15 to 20 percent gifts, including grooming products and nature books. "We can't get caught up in guns and fishing rods," the chain's president, Sally Frame-Kasaks, a former women's-wear executive, told a Daily News Record reporter. Nearly all the goods were midpriced and bore an A&F label.

When Frame-Kasaks became chairman and chief executive officer of Ann Taylor in February 1992, she was succeeded as president of Abercrombie & Fitch by Michael Jeffries, a clothing merchandising executive. At this time the chain had 36 stores credited with annual sales of about $50 million. Sales grew to $85 million in 1992, $111 million in 1993, and $165 million in 1994. There were 67 Abercrombie & Fitch stores at the end of January 1995, compared to 49 a year earlier. A target of 102 stores, mostly in malls, was set for the end of 1995. The Abercrombie & Fitch division established new records for merchandise margin rate and profitability during 1994.

Banana Republic Inc.

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:16:00 +0000

Banana Republic Inc.

Address:
1 Harrison Street
San Francisco, California 94105-1602
U.S.A.

Telephone: (415) 777-0250
Fax: (415) 896-0322

Statistics:
Wholly Owned Subsidiary of The Gap, Inc.
Incorporated: 1978 as Banana Republic Travel and Safari Clothing Company
Employees: 3,800
Sales: $282 million (1997 est.)
SICs: 5651 Family Clothing Stores

Company Perspectives:

Banana Republic reflects an American sensibility with a positive and optimistic viewpoint. The timeless style captures a modern interpretation of classic fashion and its relaxed attitude expresses a comfortable and confident quality. The adventurous spirit of the line is built from its heritage in travel and living a life full of passion that is open to discovery.

Company History:

A subsidiary of The Gap, Inc. since 1983, Banana Republic Inc. "has long been to khaki what Levi's was to denim," according to Mel Ziegler, who, along with his wife, Patricia, founded the company in 1978. Part of a growing wave of national retailers, Banana Republic has, in recent years, branched out to sell housewares, personal care items, footwear and dressy as well as casual clothes and is one of The Gap's most successful ventures in the specialty fashion market. Banana Republic's niche is with high-income, over-25, white-collar professionals, 32 percent of whom have an annual household income of more than $100,000. Another 22 percent of the company's customers earn at least $75,000, and yet another 19 percent are in the $50,000 to $75,000 range.
The Early Years: Selling a Concept As Well As Clothing

The company owes it origins to Mel Ziegler's search for a replacement for his well-worn military surplus jacket. Ziegler finally purchased a British Burma jacket in a Sydney "disposal" store, which his wife altered to downplay the garment's military look and "play up its sensibility as a comfortable, utilitarian, everyday garment," as stated in Banana Republic's historical documents. Family and friends admired the jacket's look, prompting the couple to create and open the Banana Republic Travel and Safari Clothing Company in Mill Valley, San Francisco.
From the start, Banana Republic sold a concept as well as clothing; the look was unique, and trade dress identity strong. The company's original catalogues stood out for their ink and watercolor drawings of flight jackets, photo-journalist's vests, paratrooper briefcases, and gurkha shorts--all of which were accompanied by travelogue-type copy highlighting the theme of travel and adventure. All items were constructed of natural fibers. As the premier outfitters of travel and safari wear from 1978-1983, Banana Republic was a forerunner in the specialty fashion market which appealed to the 25-44 year old crowd of young professionals.
Acquired By The Gap in the 1980s

By late 1983, when The Gap--under president Millard S. Drexler and chairman Donald G. Fisher&mdashquired Banana Republic, there were five Banana Republic stores in California, and the company's annual sales had grown to $10 million. The new subsidiary was an immediate boon to the then-floundering Gap, which was struggling to broaden its market beyond a well-established teenage customer base. Banana Republic experienced meteoric sales growth and rapid expansion for the next three years, with sales per square foot peaking in 1986 at about $750, compared to an industry average of about $235. New stores were opened whose interiors were designed to recreate the adventurous setting of the outback. Bush planes hung from ceilings; thatched-roofed huts, jeeps and ersatz wild animals were arranged on the display floor. Catalogue publications increased. The Zieglers stayed on as president and vice president of the new Banana Republic subsidiary, with creative autonomy to run the company.

But beginning in 1986, amid a period of apparel industry slump, Banana Republic's safari and khaki concept began to lose its appeal. In-store sales, which had been at 15 percent of The Gap totals and 20 percent of its profits, shrank as the product line rapidly lost popularity. Gap stock sold at a "liar's discount," with a price-earnings ratio more than 10 percent below the industry's. Trips, a travel magazine intended to promote the Banana Republic line, was launched and discontinued after its first issue and the resignation of two associate editors. The Gap gave the management at Banana Republic most of 1987 to make adjustments, but sales continued to slide. Only 15 new stores were opened in 1987, instead of the planned 25.
Banana Republic, which had been the hottest retail concept around, was eating away at its parent company's profits, showing a loss for 1988 despite the opening of many new stores. Sales totaled only between 10 and 15 percent of The Gap's totals in 1987 and 1988. In an attempt to shift the company from a purveyor of safari wear to traditional travel and casual wear, Drexler took on the additional role of CEO of Banana Republic, succeeding Fisher--who remained chairman and chief executive of The Gap. The Gap's management decided to get away from Banana Republic's basics look, and tried out new items in new colors, but the unpopularity of the new merchandise, coupled with inadequate inventories, continued to hobble Banana Republic. In April of 1988, Mel and Patricia Ziegler resigned, citing "fundamental creative and cultural differences with the management of The Gap," according to an April 1988 article which appeared in the Daily News Record.
The Turn of the Decade and A New Corporate Identity

The search for a solid corporate identity began to take shape in 1988, when The Gap brought in a new management team, including Tasha Polizzi, formerly of Ruff Hewn and Polo/Ralph Lauren, as vice-president and director of design and product at Banana Republic. Although Polizzi stayed in the post for only a year, citing creative differences in updating the direction of the chain's merchandise, the new team made some successful moves, including a decisive shift away from the safari motif. In an effort to maintain traffic in the chain's then-100 stores, it knocked down prices substantially to clear out old merchandise and to develop and test new merchandise. The new lines, which included brighter-colored casual wear and cruise line apparel, were moved to the front of the stores, while the more traditional khaki and safari apparel were placed in the back. Stores were refurbished to reflect a more sophisticated, modern sensibility. In 1989, the catalogue was discontinued.
The early nineties saw a positive turn-around for Banana Republic, under the direction of Richard L. McNally, its executive vice-president and top official. Menswear sales were much improved with the first comparable-sales increase in five quarters occurring in the first quarter of 1990. The chain generated same-store sales growth in line with The Gap's total of 5 percent beginning in 1991, a time during which yearly sales at Banana Republic were estimated at about $300 million. Banana Republic's operating income was higher in 1992 than the previous year, and the chain expanded to include 162 stores nationwide. The company began further efforts at diversifying its product lines, and innerwear, sleepwear and accessories were added to the men's and women's lines as well as a variety of looks suitable for the office. Advertising campaigns were adopted to sell the company's new relaxed, urban lifestyle image. Two received notoriety for their exceptional quality, including one which specifically targeted the gay community.

Continuing Growth in the 1990s
By 1994, Banana Republic was racking up the biggest gains of any subsidiary at The Gap, and formulated plans to open 20 new stores a year for the next several years. In 1995, it opened its first store outside the U.S. in Alberta, Canada, and rolled out its Body Care collection. In 1996, it introduced separate gender-specific concept stores, Banana Republic Men and Banana Republic Women. The women's mix had by then grown to include career suiting, casual wear, shoes, belts, handbags, lingerie, and luggage. In keeping with its story line, all items in the body care collection were perfumed with a scent called "Classic."
By 1996, there were more than 200 Banana Republic stores in the U.S., as well as five in Canada; they had a total estimated sales volume of more than $500 million. Menswear still accounted for 50 percent of all sales, and stores had begun to offer free alterations and personal shopping assistants. Home merchandise items were introduced into a handful of stores during the holiday season, such as formally dressed tables and beds in fabrics popular from the men's and women's clothing collections. Some negative press was garnered when Banana Republic ran an ad campaign featuring Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell at a time when Fisher had legislative business before the Senate, and again when several articles appeared citing the fact that Banana Republic employed maquiladora workers to produce some of their goods. But the company took both criticisms in stride, without compromising its positive trend. In 1997, "BR Athletic" was introduced, adding athletic clothing and footwear, a move mirrored by mall favorites and competitors such as Eddie Bauer, L.L. Bean and J. Crew. Donald Fisher was named National Retail Federation's Gold Medal winner, and Jeanne Jackson moved into the position of chief executive officer mid-year, while at the same time announcing the company's intent to open 30 stores a year to add to the 226 then in existence.
By early 1998, that number had grown to 40, according to Jackson, who said that the company was planning 20 percent growth a year. Among these new stores, there were plans for a new type of store, the flagship, first introduced in San Francisco, Chicago and Waikiki in 1997. Flagship stores were larger than previous

Banana Republic retail locations, averaging 25,000 to 35,00 square feet and featuring all of the company's merchandise lines under one roof. Their interior design reflected the look and feel of their distinctive communities, while incorporating the chain's signature features--super-sleek fixtures, lots of polished metal, neoclassical arches, and an overall spare design. The Chicago store, for example, incorporated the glass and steel staircase from the original Michigan Avenue store, had a facade whose vertical lines pay tribute to the city's modern architecture, and showcased art from local artists. In San Francisco, the unit was designed to replicate an upscale home, with separate rooms used to display the different styles of clothing.
Additional flagships were planned for New York, Boston and Philadelphia in 1998, while some of the smaller retail locations were slated to grow in size from around 10,000 square feet to units that were twice as large or larger. The number of stores was projected to break the three hundred mark, and there were plans to reintroduce the company's catalogue. As the end of the century approached, Banana Republic was poised to remain a strong presence in the chain store apparel market, an innovator in the area of specialty merchandise, and the marketer of a lifestyle.

Old Navy Inc.

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:15:00 +0000

Old Navy, Inc.

Address:
1 Harrison Street
San Francisco, California 94105
U.S.A.

Telephone: (650) 952-4400
Toll Free: 800-333-7899
Fax: (415) 427-2553
http://www.oldnavy.com

Statistics:
Wholly Owned Subsidiary of The Gap, Inc.
Incorporated: 1994
Employees: 7,000 (est.)
Sales: $6.5 billion (2004)
NAIC: 448140 Family Clothing Stores

Company Perspectives:
Old Navy's mission is to offer affordable, fashionable clothing and accessories for adults, kids, baby, and Moms-to-be. All of our merchandise is sold under the Old Navy name and only in our stores or on our website.

Key Dates:
1994: The first Old Navy opens in Colma, California.
1997: Old Navy becomes the first retail chain to reach $1 billion in sales in less than four years.
2000: The chain suffers from distribution problems.
2001: Old Navy opens 12 stores in Ontario, Canada, its first units outside the United States.
2004: Old Navy celebrates its tenth year of business.

Company History:

Old Navy, Inc., a subsidiary of The Gap, Inc., operates a chain of approximately 850 clothing stores, marketing itself as a low-priced provider of apparel to women, men, children, and infants. The chain operates throughout the United States and in Canada, home to more than 30 stores. Old Navy accounts for approximately 40 percent of The Gap, Inc.'s $15.8 billion in sales.

Origins

The Gap, Inc. represented one of the most impressive success stories in the history of the U.S. retail business. The clothing chain was founded by Donald G. Fisher, whose frustration at finding a pair of jeans that fit led him to open his own clothing store in 1969. Fisher, a successful real estate developer, was 40 years old when he opened the first Gap store near San Francisco State University and attracted crowds of customers a generation his junior. Featuring a broad selection of low-priced blue jeans and records, Fisher's store was the first of what would become a massive chain of stores. After fine-tuning his concept, Fisher expanded remarkably quickly, creating a $100 million, 200-store chain spread across more than 20 states by the mid-1970s. By the end of the decade, the publicly traded chain, which was growing by as many as 80 stores each year, was generating more than $300 million in sales.

The Gap's stunning success during its first decade of existence was eclipsed by its achievements during the 1980s. The company recorded another decade of phenomenal growth, with much of the success credited to Fisher's successor, Millard Drexler, who was appointed president in 1983. A Bronx native, Drexler joined The Gap after serving as president of apparel retailer AnnTaylor. Under Drexler's guidance, The Gap revamped its image, honed its merchandising strategy, and expanded internationally. The company also diversified its interests by either acquiring or starting other retail chains. Drexler achieved mixed results when he branched out, but the successes by far outweighed the failures. In 1983, the company acquired a two-store retailer named Banana Republic, which it tailored as an upscale version of The Gap. In 1986, Drexler started opening a chain of GapKids stores, followed by the establishment of the babyGap chain in 1990. All three, Banana Republic in particular, proved to be highly successful. Failures included Hemisphere, an upscale sportswear chain created in 1987 that was sold two years later, and Pottery Barn, a furnishings retailer that struggled under The Gap's ownership, but flourished under the stewardship of Williams-Sonoma, Inc., which bought the company in 1986 after Drexler and his team cut their losses and liquidated the chain.

After Drexler spent a decade experimenting with different retail concepts, Old Navy became his next creation. The idea for the chain came from Drexler, and his inspiration was drawn from an article in a trade publication. In the early 1990s, Drexler learned that Dayton Hudson Corp., the operator of the Target and Mervyn's retail chains, was planning to introduce a new chain of stores, describing its new entry, Everyday Hero, as a cheaper version of Gap. "I thought, they must know something that we don't," Drexler remembered in a February 29, 2004 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. Drexler sprang to action, ordering assistants to fan out and purchase merchandise in the $10 range at other retail chains. The buyers returned with an assortment of apparel from retailers such as J.C. Penney, Target, and Wal-Mart, and Drexler directed that the clothes be put on a boardroom table at company headquarters. Drexler assembled about a dozen of his advisors and the group surveyed the sampling, trying to assess if The Gap could produce a markdown version of itself. Calls were made to see if overseas garment factories could produce a lower-priced line using less expensive fabrics and finishes. The decision was made to press forward with the concept, and in August 1993, the company converted some of its Gap outlets into the new format, which initially operated under the banner "Gap Warehouse."

The idea was immediately successful. The sales recorded during the first few weeks convinced Drexler and fellow executives that the lower-priced concept deserved its own identity and a format designed specifically for catering to the new demographic. After dismissing suggestions such as "Forklift," Drexler chose the name "Old Navy," having seen an identically named bar while taking a walk in Paris. The first store designed specifically to be an Old Navy store opened in 1994 in a shopping center in Colma, California. At the grand opening, actress/model Cindy Crawford was on hand to sign autographs amid a flurry of media interviews and merchandise giveaways.

With the enormous financial resources of The Gap supporting its growth, Old Navy expanded at a feverish pace. By the end of its first year in business, the chain had 59 stores opened, generating $120 million in sales. In 1995, when the company opened its flagship store in Manhattan, it more than doubled its store count, ending the year with 131 stores and $420 million in sales. The success of the chain surprised even its most optimistic supporters, attracting a broader, more upscale clientele than its creators had targeted. A study conducted by NPD Group at the end of the decade found that more than 70 percent of Old Navy's sales was to households earning at least $50,000 a year. "I don't think any of us in the company ever thought Old Navy would be what it was, and what it became," Drexler said in his February 29, 2004 interview with the San Francisco Chronicle. "That's the truth," he added.

Customers flocked to the ever-expanding number of Old Navy stores, creating a retail phenomenon that rivaled The Gap's storied success in the 1970s and 1980s. Inside Old Navy units, which were roughly twice the size of The Gap units, customers could buy $22 jeans ($12 cheaper than a pair from The Gap) and $7 T-shirts in a setting designed to look "industrial chic," with exposed pipes, cement floors, and chrome fixtures. Drexler added to the excitement surrounding the chain by launching the first of a series of quirky television advertisements in 1997, when celebrities from past decades such as Morgan Fairchild and the Smothers Brothers (referred to as "retro-celebrities" by some members of the press) began hawking hugely popular lines of Old Navy apparel. The public's embrace of the Old Navy concept enabled the chain to make business history in 1997 when it became the first retail brand to reach $1 billion in sales in less than four years. The company ended the year with 282 stores and $1.3 billion in sales, a sales volume that represented nearly 20 percent of The Gap's total revenue.

Ming Taking Command in 1999

Old Navy represented the driving force behind The Gap during the late 1990s. More than 100 stores were opened each year in 1998 and 1999, giving the company a total of 513 stores by the decade's end. The company intended to continue expanding at more than 100 units a year for the next several years, a pace mandated by the chain's new president. Jenny Ming was appointed Old Navy's president in April 1999, but she was no newcomer to the company. Ming was there from the start, one of the dozen executives Drexler gathered around the boardroom table to assess the viability of the chain. It was Ming who made the calls to overseas garment factories to determine whether a less expensive line of clothing could be made. A native of a Portuguese colony near Hong Kong named Macao, Ming moved to San Francisco at age nine. After earning a degree from San Jose State University, Ming was working as a buyer in linens and junior wear at Mervyn's when Drexler recruited her in 1986.

Under Ming's stewardship, Old Navy continued to expand, with its success playing an increasingly important role in the health of The Gap. Old Navy accounted for 16 percent of the total number of stores operated by its parent company, but accounted for nearly 30 percent of its sales volume, a ratio that placed enormous pressure on Ming. To strengthen Old Navy's position as The Gap's growth vehicle, Ming intended to expand aggressively, relying on her widely praised ability to predict emerging apparel trends and greatly widen their appeal by filling Old Navy units with hip-looking merchandise. "She gets very excited about the merchandise," a colleague explained in a November 8, 1999 interview with Business Week. "She's definitely a toucher and feeler. When she sees something she likes, she winks, claps her hands, and says, 'I love that'."

Ming's tenure began strongly and then faltered, resulting in Old Navy's first setback. Within months of her appointment, speculation circulated throughout the apparel industry that Old Navy was plotting its first international expansion. The Gap's chief financial officer confirmed analysts' theories, announcing in August 1999 that Old Navy was close to establishing its first foreign store, a move that was going to be made in either Japan, the United Kingdom, or Canada. While senior executives mulled over their decision, Ming presided over the opening of the largest Old Navy store in the five-year history of the company. In November 1999, a massive, four-level store was opened in San Francisco, the fourth flagship store opened by the company (New York, Chicago, and Seattle were home to the other three flagships).

Old Navy stumbled for the first meaningful time in 2000, and the timing could not have been worse for The Gap. The sprawling retailer began recording declining sales, guilty, according to critics, of pursuing fickle teenage customers and alienating its over-30 customers. By October 2000, the company had posted five consecutive months of same-store sales declines, while its stock value plummeted 57 percent. The downward spiral dragged on, culminating in a $7.7 million loss in 2001--two years after the company had recorded $1.1 billion in net income. Old Navy, which for several years had helped to compensate for The Gap's miscues, offered little help. Plans for the company's international expansion were derailed by distribution problems that bogged the chain with excess inventory. "Right now," an analyst commented to the San Francisco Chronicle in August 11, 2000, "Old Navy is driving in reverse."

International Debut in 2001

Although The Gap continued to suffer during the beginning of the new century, Old Navy managed to recover from its choked-up distribution system. In 2001, the chain made its international debut, compensating for the delay with a forceful entry into Canada. In April 2001, Old Navy opened 12 stores in the province of Ontario, orchestrating the maneuver on the same day early in the month, the first multiple store openings executed by the company on the same day. "We really wanted to be able to have a strong presence from the start," Old Navy's director of public relations explained to the San Francisco Chronicle on April 10, 2001.

As Old Navy closed in on its tenth anniversary, its pace of adding at least 100 new stores annually began to slow. By the end of 2002, the chain consisted of 842 stores, having added 44 units during the year. In 2003, the company increased its store count by only one store. The same was true of 2004, as Old Navy ended the year with 844 stores. The majority of the expansion during these years took place in Canada, where Old Navy operated 33 stores in 2004.

Despite the negligible expansion achieved in the years leading up to its tenth anniversary, Old Navy represented a powerful retailing force. After only a decade, the chain accounted for approximately 40 percent of The Gap's nearly $16 billion in revenue, figuring as an incredibly important business to its parent company. As Old Navy prepared for its second decade of business, the chain promised to remain the lifeblood of The Gap and a popular choice among bargain hunters for years to come.

Principal Subsidiaries: Old Navy (Apparel), LLC; Old Navy (Canada) Inc.; Old Navy (East) L.P.; Old Navy (Holdings), LLC; Old Navy (ITM) Inc.; Old Navy (Puerto Rico) Inc.; Old Navy, LLC.

Principal Competitors: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.; Target Corporation; J.C. Penney Corporation, Inc.

American Eagle Outfitters

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:14:00 +0000

American Eagle Outfitters, Inc.

Address:
150 Thorn Hill Drive
Warrendale, Pennsylvania 15086-7528
U.S.A.

Telephone: (724) 776-4857
Fax: (724) 779-5585
http://www.ae.com

Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1993
Employees: 10,892
Sales: $1.5 billion (2002)
Stock Exchanges: NASDAQ
Ticker Symbol: AEOS
NIAC: 448190 Other Clothing Stores; 448150 Clothing Accessories Stores

Company Perspectives:
American Eagle Outfitters is a leading lifestyle retailer that designs, markets, and sells its own brand of relaxed, versatile clothing for 16- to 34-year-olds, providing high-quality merchandise at affordable prices. AE's lifestyle collection includes casual basics like khakis, cargos, and jeans; fashion tops like rugbys, polos, and graphic T's; and functional items like swimwear, outerwear, footwear and accessories.

Key Dates:
1977: American Eagle Outfitters (AE) is launched as segment of Silvermans Menswear, Inc.
1991: AE grows to 153 stores.
1992: The company focuses on private-label merchandise.
1993: American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. is incorporated.
1994: AE goes public with a listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
2000: AE steps up its promotional campaign, gaining exposure for its clothing on the television series "Dawson's Creek" and in teen-oriented movies.
2001: AE generates record net income of $105.5 million.

Company History:

Rihanna Rockin AE Jeans

American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. (AE) is a chain of mall-based stores that sells casual, outdoor-inspired fashion apparel. With nearly 700 shops in the United States and Canada, AE enjoyed average annual sales increases of 35 percent from 1996 to 2001. This growth rate earned AE a ranking of 63rd among Fortune magazine's list of fastest growing companies. American Eagle generated record net income of $105.5 million in fiscal 2001 (ended February 2, 2002). Retail outlets in regional shopping malls account for the vast majority of sales, but the company also sells its gear via a website and its "magalog"--a combination lifestyle magazine and catalog. AE's Canadian operations include the Thrifty's/Bluenotes chain, as well as Bramear shops and National Logistics Services, a distribution arm. The company also operates a small distribution center, Eagle Trading, in Mexico.

The vast majority of the chain's sales are generated from private label brands--American Eagle Outfitters, AE, and AE Supply; this focus on private-label merchandise was launched through a 1992 repositioning and was intended to differentiate American Eagle from its mall competitors, such as The Limited, The Gap, and Abercrombie & Fitch. To keep up with the latest fashion trends, the company employs an in-house design team, whose merchandise designs are then manufactured to specification by outside vendors or by American Eagle's manufacturing subsidiary, Prophecy Ltd. This private-label/in-house design system enables American Eagle to keep tight control of quality and hold prices down. Customer credit is offered through an American Eagle Outfitters credit card.

Sexy Low Rise AE Trunks Worn By Don F. Perie

Approximately 26 percent of the company's stock is owned by the Schottenstein family, whose Schottenstein Stores Corp. is a large privately held company based in Columbus, Ohio, with numerous retail holdings. Jay L. Schottenstein acted as CEO of American Eagle from 1992 to 2002, when he stepped aside to make room for co-CEOs Roger S. Markfield and James V. O'Donnell. Schottenstein remained as chairman of the board.

1977 Debut

Will Smith Wears AE

When American Eagle Outfitters was launched in 1977, it was part of Silvermans Menswear, Inc., a retailing company whose flagship was the Silvermans chain, which sold young men's apparel and accessories and was founded in McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania (near Pittsburgh), in 1904. The Silverman family owned and operated Silvermans Menswear, and by the mid-1970s two brothers--in the third generation of Silvermans in the family business--were running things: Jerry Silverman, president and CEO, and Mark Silverman, executive vice-president and COO. The Silverman brothers believed that they needed more than one concept to continue growing their company--that the addition of other chains would then enable them to operate more than one store in the same mall. They thus opened the first American Eagle Outfitters store in 1977, positioning it as a seller of brand-name leisure apparel, footwear, and accessories for men and women, with an emphasis on merchandise geared toward outdoor sports, such as hiking, mountain climbing, and camping. American Eagle quickly established itself as a mall store able to attract an unusually wide array of shoppers, although its "rugged" offerings were geared more toward men. And with a nationally distributed mail-order catalog supporting the retail units, the new chain quickly became a key competitor not only to such established retailers as The Gap but also to such venerable catalogers as L.L. Bean and Lands End.

In 1980, Silvermans Menswear changed its name to Retail Ventures, Inc. (RVI). That same year, the Silvermans ran into some financial difficulties and sold a 50 percent stake in RVI to the Schottenstein family. The Schottensteins owned Schottenstein Stores, a retailing giant based in Columbus, Ohio. Schottenstein Stores was founded in the early 20th century by E.L. Schottenstein when he opened the first Value City Department Store, a discount department store chain which by the early 21st century included DSW Shoe Warehouse and Filene's Basement.

In 1985, RVI launched three more new chains: His Place and Go Places, concepts similar to that of Silvermans, and Help-Ur-Self, a bulk food store. The following year the company spent $8 million to expand its headquarters, adding 25,000 square feet to its office space and 146,000 square feet to its 119,000-square-foot distribution center. Also in 1986 RVI added 34 new stores to its existing 200. Many of these were American Eagle units, as the company began that year to concentrate more of its resources on American Eagle, which was achieving rapid sales growth, than on Silvermans, whose sales were being hurt from increasing competition, particularly from discount chains.

This shift in emphasis culminated in early 1989 when RVI announced a major restructuring in which it sold its Silvermans, His Place, and Go Places chains--a total of 125 stores--to Merry-Go-Round Enterprises Inc., a Towson, Maryland-based operator of 430 mall-based clothing stores, including Merry-Go-Round, Cignal, and Attivo. RVI also spun off to the Silverman family the 11-store Help-Ur-Self chain, which had performed reasonably well but was not considered synergistic with American Eagle. RVI was thus left with American Eagle Outfitters--now with 137 stores in 36 states and sales of $125 million--as its single focus. The company planned to aggressively expand its sole remaining chain by as many as 120 stores over the following three years. It began to implement this plan but only after The Gap had approached RVI in early 1989 about buying American Eagle and after negotiations to do so had fallen through.

The Early 1990s

American Eagle Models

Although the chain clearly had potential for growth, in the midst of the recessionary early 1990s American Eagle was saddled with dated inventory that brought low profit margins. With brand-name apparel increasingly being offered by various clothing chains, catalogers, and discounters, American Eagle was facing increasing competition. High management turnover also contributed to the chain's difficulties during this period.

By mid-1991 American Eagle had grown to 153 stores--not nearly the expansion rate envisioned two years earlier--and sales had stagnated. For the fiscal year ending in July 1991, sales were $144.3 million, a minuscule increase over the $142.4 million of the previous year. Worse yet, the chain posted a net loss of $8.9 million for the year. In a deal designed to position American Eagle for renewed growth, the Schottenstein family bought the 50 percent of RVI owned by the Silverman family, giving the Schottensteins full control of the company and its only chain. Jay L. Schottenstein became the new chairman and CEO of RVI, replacing Mark Silverman, while Sam Forman was brought in as president and COO. Forman had been CEO of Kuppenheimer Clothiers. The Schottensteins also hired Roger Markfield as president and "chief merchant." Formerly of Macy's and the Gap, Markfield helped AEO find its target customer.

Don F. Perie Rockin AE Vintage Graffic T's & White/Navy Trucker Cap

Under its new ownership and leadership, the chain was repositioned in 1992 to focus on private-label casual apparel for men and women, while retaining the outdoor-oriented look for which it was best known. It hired its own cadre of designers and began developing its own sources of merchandise. The private label strategy was intended to position American Eagle merchandise as value priced. The company also began opening American Eagle outlet stores to reduce its inventory of out-of-season and branded clothing items.

Going Public in 1994

American Eagle's 1994 fiscal year was its best year to date, evidence that the repositioning was working. Sales for the year were $199.7 million, while net income was a healthy $11.9 million. In the midst of this successful year, RVI announced that it would go public through an initial public offering (IPO). In November 1993 an American Eagle Outfitters, Inc. subsidiary was established and it was under this name that RVI and the American Eagle chain emerged in April 1994, with a listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange and with the Schottenstein family maintaining roughly a 60 percent stake in the new company and Forman about 10 percent. American Eagle went public as a 167-store chain with nine outlet stores and locations in 34 states.

Much of the approximate $37 million raised through the IPO was almost immediately poured back into the company for an aggressive program of expansion and renovation. From July through December of 1994 alone, 55 new stores were opened. At the one-year anniversary of the IPO, nearly 90 new stores had been added. Unfortunately, several of these new locations were unprofitable from the time they opened their doors, and it became apparent that the chain had expanded too rapidly.

Adding to the confusion at this time was a rapid succession of management changes. In early 1995, Forman was named vice-chairman, with Robert G. Lynn, a one-time president and CEO of F.W. Woolworth Co., becoming vice-chairman and COO and Roger S. Markfield being promoted to president and chief merchandising officer. Lynn, however, left the company in December 1995 over reported management differences. Later that same month, George Kolber took over Lynn's vice-chairman and COO spots.

Don F. Perie Sportin AE Low Rise Trunks & Aviator Pants

Forman, meanwhile, sold his 10 percent stake in American Eagle in early 1995. Later that year he resigned from his position as vice-chairman following his purchase of 32 American Eagle outlet stores in 18 states for between $14 million and $16 million. The company had decided to divest the outlets in order to concentrate on its mall locations, and it subsequently closed its remaining seven outlet stores. Forman signed a licensing agreement with American Eagle, whereby the outlets he purchased would operate under the American Eagle Outlets name and would sell merchandise made specifically for the outlets. Through all of these changes, Jay Schottenstein continued in his role of chairman and CEO.

Repositioned Again in 1996

The year 1996 was a transitional one for American Eagle as it cut back drastically on its expansion plans in order to reposition the chain once again. In search of higher-margin merchandise to offer, Markfield and Kolber determined that the chain had to sell more women's apparel, which is typically more profitable. The leaders also decided to completely divorce American Eagle of its once-eclectic range of customers and target the lucrative youth market--ages 16 to 34--through a younger and hipper feel to the clothing and in the chain's marketing. The company launched a "magalog," a catalog of merchandise that also included editorial content of interest to this key demographic, including music and book reviews, feature stories, horoscopes, and advice columns. Finally, American Eagle would strongly emphasize value pricing through a commitment to private label merchandise. Remaining at the chain's core was its venerable rugged, outdoorsy style.

For fiscal 1996 (the first year of the company's new fiscal year, which now ended at the end of January), about 98 percent of the company's sales were generated from its private label brands, American Eagle Outfitters, AE, and AE Supply. Women's clothing, meantime--which in fiscal 1995 had accounted for only 30 percent of sales--accounted for 47 percent of sales by that time.

If 1996 was a transitional year for American Eagle, then the transition went exceedingly well, as 1997 turned into a breakout year. For the year, sales increased 24.3 percent to a record $405.7 million, while net income more than tripled, going from $5.9 million in 1996 to $19.5 million in 1997. Comparable store sales were very strong, increasing 15.1 percent in 1997 compared to the previous year.

In addition to opening 32 new stores in 1997, American Eagle that year also for the first time began manufacturing its own clothing through the acquisition of Prophecy Ltd., a New York-based contract apparel maker which had been majority owned by the Schottenstein family. This move toward further vertical integration was in keeping with the chain's desire to control costs and maintain quality. The terms of the purchase were $900,000 in cash plus a contingency payment of up to $700,000.

Early 1998 was a busy period for American Eagle as it introduced the AE Clear Card, the first clear credit card. By the end of 1999, the card accounted for 14 percent of total sales. The company also began to open new stores outside of enclosed malls, in airports, strip malls, and other locales. AE also undertook a West Coast expansion that year, with openings in Seattle and Tacoma, Washington as well as Portland, Oregon. AE also launched a Web site to appeal to the chain's youth-oriented customer base. The company envisioned its Internet outlet not so much as a primary sales vehicle, but more as a way for customers to "preshop" and for the company to track geographic areas that were ripe for retail expansion.

The company's growth strategies were well-timed, as AE rode a rising tide in the young men's clothing business. During the late 1990s, the U.S. teen population--AE's key demographic--expanded more rapidly than the general populace. Women's Wear Daily, a clothing industry periodical, called AE "one of the hottest retailers in the country," citing it as "a case study on how to build a brand." The renewed strength of American Eagle was also evident in two separate three-for-two stock splits, which occurred during the first five months of 1998. AE posted record results that fiscal year, as earnings increased more than 175 percent to $54.1 million on a 44.8 percent increase in sales, to $587.6 million.

AEO's success garnered the attention of upscale competitor Abercrombie & Fitch, which brought three lawsuits over the course of four years accusing AEO of "intentionally and systematically copying" everything from the paper its catalog was printed on to editorial content and product names like "vintage sweatshirts" and "field jerseys." American Eagle won each case, some by outright dismissal.

Having successfully repositioned its brand, AEO moved to fine-tune in-house efficiencies in the latter years of the 1990s. The company instituted a new computer system that would separate inventory and personnel management from sales transactions. Capturing up-to-the-minute information on fast and slow moving merchandise gave the company the ability to refine production schedules in line with demand. More efficient distribution meant that the company could keep up with the fast-changing tastes of U.S. teens. In 2000, AE announced its plans to open a distribution center near Kansas City, Missouri, to support its growth plans for the Western United States.

The company continued to hone its marketing strategy as well, becoming the official costumer for the television series Dawson's Creek and inking a deal with Dimension Films to provide the wardrobe for no fewer than four of its teen-oriented films in the years to come. AE subsequently signed a deal to provide clothing to the 10th anniversary season of MTV's Road Rules reality series as well. The company soon added national television advertising, primarily via cable.


Special Edition AE Low Rise Boot Cut Jeans With Eagle Logo "Don F. Perie Exclusive"

Writing for WWD, Jennifer Weitzman attributed AE's success to its sole focus on the teen market, noting that the appeal to a particular clique--in this case, "jock-prep"--differentiated it from stores like the Gap, which had a broader pull. The pitfall of this niche marketing strategy was the fickle nature of teen tastes; if AE were to fall out of favor, it would have a difficult time regaining its following.

The company reached a milestone at the end of the 20th century, crossing the $1 billion sales mark in fiscal 2000 (the year ended February 2, 2000).

New Century, New Country

Watch (New To The AE Product Line)

In 2000, American Eagle made a bold move into the Canadian market with the purchase of the a 172-store chain and its warehouse operations from Dylex Limited for $74 million. Like AE, the 115-store Thriftys chain offered "Bluenotes" private-label clothing at locations in major shopping malls. The acquisition provided an opportunity for AE to quickly convert the majority of these stores to its own format. By early 2002, it had made 46 such changes. As American Eagle CFO Laura Weil told Mortgage Banking, "It would have taken years to build up this kind of store location portfolio any other way."

The company chalked up another year of record earnings in fiscal 2001, with a net income of $105.5 million on sales of $1.37 billion. Despite a recession, sales continued to grow in fiscal 2002, increasing 6.7 percent to $1.5 billion. However, the Bluenotes/Thriftys operations proved a drag on results, with sales for that segment of the company falling 5.7 percent for the period.

After ten years at the helm, Jay L. Schottenstein relinquished the chief executive office to Roger S. Markfield and James V. O'Donnell, who served as co-CEOs beginning in December 2002. By early 2003, American Eagle appeared to be weathering the recession quite handsomely, but its new leaders faced the ongoing challenges of converting the remaining Canadian operations to the AE format, as well as continuing to correctly gauge the finicky tastes of North America's youth.

Principal Subsidiaries: Prophecy Ltd.; Eagle Trading (Mexico).

Principal Competitors: The Gap, Inc.; Eddie Bauer, Inc.; Abercrombie & Fitch Co.

The Gap Inc.

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 21:11:00 +0000

The Gap, Inc.

Address:
2 Folsom Street
San Francisco, California 94105
U.S.A.

Telephone: (650) 952-4400
Fax: (415) 427-2553
http://www.gap.com

Statistics:
Public Company
Incorporated: 1969 as The Gap Stores, Inc.
Employees: 169,000
Sales: $14.4 billion (2003)
Stock Exchanges: New York
Ticker Symbol: GPS
NAIC: 448140 Family Clothing Stores

Company Perspectives:
At Gap, Inc. we never stop moving. It takes thousands of passionate, dedicated and talented employees around the world to deliver the merchandise and shopping experience our customers expect and deserve. From color to concept, it all begins with inspiration--whether it's people-watching on the streets of Tokyo, a flash from a dream, or a visit to a local art gallery.

Key Dates:
1969: Don and Doris Fisher open their first store in San Francisco, California.
1976: The company offers 1.2 million shares to the public.
1983: Millard Drexler is named president; the firm acquires Banana Republic.
1986: The first GapKids store is opened.
1987: The first international store is opened in London.
1990: BabyGap is launched.
1994: The Old Navy brand is established.
1997: The Gap Web site debuts.
2002: Drexler retires; Paul Pressler is named CEO.

Company History:

The 1st Of Many Gap Stores

Founded as a single store by Donald G. Fisher and wife Doris, The Gap, Inc. has evolved into a major retail company with well known brands, including its namesake, Banana Republic, and Old Navy. The firm sells a variety of casual-style and urbane chic clothing to men, women, and children in over 4,250 stores across the United States and in Canada, France, Japan, Germany, and the United Kingdom. The Gap flourished through the 1980s and 1990s under the leadership of Millard "Mickey" Drexler but has battled tough times in the early years of the new century. Drexler retired in 2002, and Paul Pressler was named CEO while Fisher remained chairman.

Capitalizing on the Generation Gap: 1969-75

Donald Fisher was not of the generation to whom The Gap owes its popularity. A member of a family that made its home in California for generations, Fisher was 40 years old and a successful real estate developer in 1969 when he took note of a new trend among the city's increasingly disaffected youth. Blue jeans, for years made chiefly by Levi Strauss & Co. for laborers and outdoorsmen, were suddenly becoming a part of the counterculture's standard costume. Durable, cheap, comfortable, and acceptably offbeat, jeans were the perfect uniform for a generation of young people anxious to demonstrate its antipathy to corporate America.

Fisher was said to have conceived of The Gap when he was unable to find the right size of Levi's in a department store in Sacramento, California. He realized that jeans had become more popular than current merchandising outlets could accommodate, and like hamburgers, stereo equipment, and gasoline, they could be sold through a chain of small stores devoted solely to that product. With the help of his wife, Doris, Fisher opened a shop near San Francisco State University in one of his own buildings, offering a combination of records and jeans. Their intention was to attract jeans customers by means of the records, but at first no one noticed the jeans, and Fisher was driven close to bankruptcy. In desperation, he placed ads in local newspapers announcing the sale of "four tons" of jeans at rock-bottom prices, and the clothes were soon gone. To emphasize the youthful ambiance of his new store, Fisher named it The Gap, an allusion to a then hot topic, the Generation Gap.

When Fisher incorporated his business as The Gap Stores, Inc., it was an immediate success. Although the Fishers had no experience in retailing, their stores' combination of jeans, low prices, and wide selection proved irresistible to the huge market of 14- to 25-year-olds. Fisher added new outlets in San Francisco and was soon enjoying the benefits of chain store merchandising: centralized buying and advertising, excellent name recognition, and uniform pricing. Initially, The Gap Stores' buying program was singularly uncomplicated, as the stores carried only one product, jeans by Levi Strauss & Co. The stores were brightly painted, often orange, filled with circular metal display racks known as "rounders," and usually enlivened by rock and roll music. To hold down rental costs, the Fishers kept stores small--about 3,000 to 4,000 square feet. They located most of their stores in shopping centers, many of them enclosed in malls.

Two years after opening its first stores, The Gap's sales were running at $2.5 million annually, and the Fishers converted the company into a public corporation, though they retained the great majority of stock. With extraordinary celerity, they opened stores across the United States while maintaining tight control over the critical accounting, purchasing, and marketing functions of what was soon a sizable corporation. In five years, sales had increased almost 50-fold, to $97 million, and the number of stores had grown to 186, spread over 21 states. Analysts credited the company's success to the Fishers' observance of a few cardinal rules of retailing: Gap stores replaced its stock with maximum speed; its prices were low and stayed that way; big sellers were kept on the rack until they stopped moving, rather than being retired in favor of new styles simply for the sake of novelty; and only a few items were stocked--jeans, shirts, light jackets--each offered in its complete range of colors and sizes, ensuring a minimum of disappointed customers.

The company's growth was also made possible by the extensive national advertising of Levi Strauss, which provided 100 percent of The Gap's merchandise during its early years. Such dependence on a single supplier had obvious dangers, however, and around 1973 The Gap began marketing several labels of its own, as well as national brands other than Levi's. These proved crucial to the company's short- and long-term health; by 1975 Gap stores generated $100 million in net sales.

Ups and Downs: 1976-80

Actress Jessica Alba

By 1976, the Fishers were ready to make their first substantial public stock offering. The company's spectacular growth had attracted widespread interest, and its offering of 1.2 million shares sold quickly at $18 per share in May. Coincidentally, however, the retail industry went into a steep slide, which, when combined with The Gap's large expenditures for new stores, pushed the company into the red for the final quarter of its fiscal year, ending July 31. The value of the newly issued stock fell to $7.25, prompting nine separate class-action suits from outraged stock purchasers who alleged that the Fishers had tried to dump their holdings before The Gap announced its bad news. These charges came despite the fact that the Fishers sold only about 10 percent of their holdings during the period in question. Rather than wage endless litigation, The Gap settled the suits in 1979 for a total of $5.8 million, or 40 cents per share, and did its best to mend its frayed relations with Wall Street.

By the end of the 1970s, the company could pay such a figure without undue strain. Adding between 50 and 80 stores annually, The Gap pushed its sales to $307 million in 1980 and was close to achieving nationwide representation. The jeans market was no longer quite so straightforward, however. Members of the great wave of youngsters who had come of age wearing blue jeans in the 1970s were now older, wealthier, and more conservative, and the Fishers were busily attempting to break out of the jeans niche by expanding The Gap's selection of clothing. Several experimental chains featuring upscale fashions were essayed and brought together under the Taggs name but later liquidated because they were unprofitable. Gap stores were enlarged to handle increasing amounts of what became known as casual wear and were frequently moved outside of shopping centers to freestanding locations, where space was plentiful and rent lower per square foot.

Along with the search for a line of clothes to appeal to an older clientele, the Fishers also faced Levi Strauss & Co.'s decision to supply big mass marketers such as Sears and J.C. Penney with its jeans. Levi's were now sold everywhere, underscoring The Gap's need to develop a label and look of its own. The company's own brands, created during the 1970s, generated about 45 percent of Gap sales in 1980, with Levi's adding an equal amount and other national brands making up the balance. Considering that ten years earlier essentially all of The Gap's sales were Levi Strauss & Co. products, the 1980 figures represented an achievement, but it was clear that if the company were to avoid inundation by the rising tide of jeans discounters it would have to fashion a new, exclusively Gap image.

Mickey Comes to Town: 1981-86

To accomplish this task, Donald Fisher hired Millard "Mickey" Drexler as president in 1983. Drexler, then 40, had just solved a similar problem with AnnTaylor, creating a more chic image for the chain and quadrupling sales in the bargain. Drexler was born in the Bronx to a family with roots in the garment business and by age 23 was a buyer for Bloomingdale's. After a stint at Macy's, he became president of AnnTaylor in 1980, where his work caught the eye of Donald Fisher, who was contemplating the future of The Gap. Drexler accepted the job as president at the end of 1983 (sales $480 million) and was given a block of stock that would make him one of the country's wealthiest retail executives.

Drexler immediately began The Gap's wholesale transformation, in spite of the company's currently excellent financial status. The new president found little that he liked; proliferating competition in jeans and The Gap's youthful marketing image had forced the company into a price-driven volume business. Its orange-painted stores were cluttered with rounders displaying merchandise of many labels that Drexler later described to the New York Times as "trendy but not tasteful ... well, just plain ugly." Worst of all, most consumers perceived The Gap as strictly for teenagers at a time when people who grew up in the 1960s were developing more upmarket tastes. It would be difficult to overcome The Gap's 15-year tradition as the place where kids went to pick up a pair of Levi's.

Drexler began by eliminating all private label brands but one: Gap. Levi Strauss products were kept but relegated to the background; henceforth, The Gap would be known not only as a store, but as a line of clothes as well. Drexler created a large in-house design staff to develop clothes that would be casual, simple, made of natural fibers, and more clearly differentiated by gender than were jeans. The look was informal but classic--still denim-based but including a variety of shirts, skirts, blouses, and sweaters in assorted colors and weaves. It was clothing for people who wanted to look and feel young without appearing slovenly or rebellious, a description that fit a vast number of U.S. consumers in the 1980s.

Gap stores were substantially revamped. Neutral grays and white replaced the garish orange, and the ubiquitous rounders gave way to shelves of neatly folded clothing under soft lighting. The company's advertising, as devised by Drexler's longtime colleague, Magdalena (Maggie) Gross, shifted from radio and television to upscale magazines and newspapers and featured older models engaged in familiar, outdoor activities that were not necessarily connected with the youth culture.

A few years later, Gross launched the "Individuals of Style" campaign, a series of black and white portraits of both famous and unknown subjects by a team of celebrated photographers. The ads stressed style, not The Gap, whose clothes did not always appear in all of the photos, and they were enormously successful in helping to change the public's perception of the company. The Gap came to mean good taste of an informal variety, and the brand name Gap soon acquired the cachet needed if the company were to compete with other retailers of casual wear such as Benetton and The Limited. In addition, the word "stores" was dropped from the company's name.

Drexler's revolution at The Gap cost a good deal of money, and financial results for 1984 were poor, with profits down 43 percent to $12.2 million. By the middle of the following year, however, it was clear he had pulled off something of a miracle. Gross revenue, profits, and same-store sales were all up; more importantly, the company had fresh energy and a merchandising focus that could carry it for years to come. In the meantime, The Gap had acquired a number of other retail chains, for better and worse. Foremost among these was Banana Republic, founded in 1979 by another California husband and wife team, Melvyn and Patricia Ziegler.

The two-store chain of safari and travel clothing outfits, bought by The Gap in 1983, had a well-established catalogue business. After its acquisition and the introduction of private-label clothing lines, Banana Republic's sales doubled each year through the mid-1980s but slowed quickly thereafter. Despite the mixed results of the Banana Republic acquisition, the company continued to seek out other chain stores. Pottery Barn was a housewares chain of about 30 stores in New York and California; after several problematic years, it was liquidated in 1986. That same year, Drexler sought to fill another clothing need of the baby boomer generation with the debut of GapKids, featuring comfortable, durable clothes for the children of parents who shopped at Gap stores. The concept was a huge success, and along with Banana Republic (which peaked in the late 1980s with revenue of more than $250 million a year) figured largely in The Gap's long-range planning.

The Gap Continues Its Climb: 1987-96

By 1987, The Gap decided to try its wares outside the United States, and its first international store was opened in London. Additional stores soon sprang up throughout the United Kingdom, Canada, and France. Unfortunately, stateside, Banana Republic's safari gear bubble burst, and it became a money-losing liability. The Gap also tested the higher end of the clothing market with Hemisphere, a nine-store chain of upscale U.S. sportswear with European styling. Created in 1987, the same year the company broke $1 billion in sales, Hemisphere offered elegant fashions but soon ran afoul of a severe recession. Disposed of only two years later, neither the Hemisphere mistake or the demise of Pottery Barn was serious enough to cause more than a few tremors at the parent company, whose spectacular rebirth in the Drexler era left ample room for such experimentation.

In 1990, as Banana Republic searched for secure footing, GapKids prospered and launched a new venture, babyGap. Like its sibling, babyGap was a phenomenal success and became a popular attraction in GapKids stores. For the start of a new decade, The Gap was looking very good indeed: a stock split occurred in September, and at year-end the company's 1,092 stores pulled in $1.9 billion in sales with net earnings of $144.5 million. In the early 1990s, Banana Republic was busy refocusing its image while GapKids and babyGap flourished. Overall, though, revenue, net income, and return-on-equity were all outstanding ($2.5 billion, $229.8 million, and 40.2 percent respectively due to another stock split in June) in 1991 and virtually every year since Drexler's program had taken effect in 1985. The Gap's transition from a discount jeans warehouse to a sleek fashion arbiter was not altogether painless, yet the result had been more successful than Donald and Doris Fisher ever imagined. In 1991, the Fisher family still held more than 40 percent of the company, which now operated more than 1,216 stores in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, with plans to expand total sales area by 15 percent annually. Not only had The Gap followed its Baby Boomer clientele as they grew older and wealthier, it provided for their children, too. GapKids was the fastest-growing segment of the company as a whole, with most of the more than 223 GapKids stores housing a babyGap department for infants and toddlers.

Though 1992 marked a dip in profits and sales growth due to slower turnover and increased competition, the company addressed these problems by turning away from unisex clothing to more gender-specific items. Along with refurbishing stores and placing more emphasis on women, The Gap came back with record numbers in 1993 and a new franchise, originally called Gap Warehouse, because for some it had become increasingly cool not to spend money on clothes (i.e., the "grunge" and "slacker" looks). Lacking the trademark flare associated with the company, Drexler hired an outside to firm to come up with a new name to no avail. Then when strolling in Paris with colleagues, Drexler saw the perfect moniker for the down-market stores painted on a building: Old Navy. Hence Old Navy Clothing Company, with stores nearly twice as big as other Gap stores, filled with sturdy, value-priced (20 to 30 percent lower) clothing for the entire family. Despite the circumstances of its birth, Old Navy became another Gap sensation.

Banana Republic, meanwhile, was gaining ground with urbane elegance as a hip alternative to The Gap's casualness. To shore up its product line, the upscale clothier initiated a shop-within-a-shop concept, featuring different collections, jewelry, and leather accessories. By 1994, there were 1,507 Gap-owned stores (188 were Banana Republic) contributing to the company's $3.72 billion in sales. Within a year, there were 1,680 stores--210 Banana Republic, 902 Gap, 437 GapKids, and 131 Old Navy. International stores had surged from 1994's 124 (72 in Canada, 49 in the United Kingdom, and 3 in France) to 91 in Canada, 55 in the United Kingdom, 12 in France, 4 in Japan, and 2 in Germany in 1995. Likewise, The Gap's statistics were robust: a two-for-one stock split paid out dividends in March; sales leapt 18 percent to nearly $4.4 billion; and net earnings rose 11 percent to $354 million over the previous year's $320 million.

Banana Republic, once a blemish on the perfect Gap picture, had blossomed with more new products, including footwear, personal care items, a sharper focus on women, and five new stores in Canada. At the same time, Old Navy increased its market share by doubling in size, exceeding the company's hopes for its newest division, while Gap and GapKids lost some of their momentum, although babyGap maintained its prominence. New directions for GapKids and babyGap included plush toys, other non-clothing items, and freestanding babyGap stores; The Gap debuted GapScents and continued to broaden its age range and clothing lines to include work attire. Yet perhaps the biggest news of 1995 was Donald Fisher's decision to relinquish his duties as CEO of The Gap, Inc. His successor was Mickey Drexler, who added the responsibilities of CEO to those of president. Fisher remained chairman, however, and still kept a hand in running the company he founded nearly 30 years before.

By 1996, The Gap's dominance of the fashion scene was fixed; consumers of all ages could find something in one of its stores. The industry even honored the company in the April issue of Elle when such high-brow designers as Giorgio Armani, Nino Cerruti, Carolina Herrera, Todd Oldham, and Cynthia Rowley paid "tribute to the little company that became master of the universe." Though it began with a singular purpose, The Gap, with its burgeoning cluster of stores and subsidiaries, changed fashion for not only baby boomers but for generations to come. The Gap's success was in no small part due to Donald Fisher's and Mickey Drexler's business acuity, especially through vertical integration. By keeping the design, manufacture, inspection, packaging, shipment, display, advertising, and ultimate sale of every item with its name in-house, The Gap maintained exceptional quality and consistency in an increasingly erratic marketplace. If The Gap's clientele was not quite as broad as some department stores or mass marketers, its sophistication and ever-growing consumer base more than made up for it. The Gap--its name formerly a quirky play on generational unrest--came to mean the ultimate in fashion and taste for both younger and older generations.

Late 1990s and Beyond

By the late 1990s, Drexler felt The Gap had strayed too far into the trendy genre and was losing customers as a result. As such, he retooled The Gap's image in 1997, emphasizing a return to simplicity and the company's most basic offerings--pocket tee's, jeans, and khakis. Long-time advertising director Maggie Gross left the firm after Drexler pulled the plug on a print campaign that did not gel with The Gap's new basic image. That year, the firm went back to television advertising with commercials that highlighted Gap Easy Fit jeans featuring well-known celebrities that included Lena Horne, LL Cool J, and Luscious Jackson. In 1998, the firm launched another round of highly successful television commercials--this time the star being its line of khaki pants. The company also began its foray into e-tailing and introduced gap.com along with gapkids.com and babygap.com. Banana Republic and Old Navy began catering to online shoppers shortly thereafter.

Thanks to Drexler's efforts, The Gap grew at a rapid clip during the latter half of the 1990s, securing record sales and earnings. In 1997, sales at Old Navy surpassed $1 billion while overall company sales grew to $6.5 billion. Sales climbed to $9 billion the following year, bolstered by the opening of 356 new stores. The company could now claim that one new store opened each day. In 1999, 570 new stores were added to the company's arsenal as net earnings exceeded $1.1 billion. According to the National Post, the company had grown by 24,000 percent from 1984 to 1999. Drexler's reign at The Gap had become one of the retail industry's amazing success stories.

The new century, however, brought with it rocky times for the 30-year-old retailer. During 2000, the company opened 731 new units and sales grew to $13.6 billion. On the other hand, net income fell to $877 million while comparable store sales fell by 5 percent. In April 2000, sales began declining. Disaster struck in 2001 when the company posted a $7.7 million loss. "Simply put," wrote Anne Kingston of the National Post, "The Gap has lost its groove. Its merchandising is unfocused and it has lost ground to competitors. The formula that made it great no longer has the same currency. More damningly, Gap Inc. has alienated shoppers."

Indeed, the company was losing market share in the over-30 category and was having difficulty appealing to a younger audience. The Gap had also come under fire for its labor practices in third-world countries. Various labor groups claimed The Gap advocated sweatshop labor overseas. In response, the company created a global monitoring program to supervise factory conditions where its clothes were manufactured.

Not surprisingly, Drexler announced his retirement during 2002. He later took a job to head up rival J. Crew Group Inc. After Drexler's departure, Fisher began his search for a new leader, one whose management style could catapult The Gap back into the upper echelon of retail fashion. Paul Pressler, an executive from Walt Disney Co., was tapped to revive the company just as Drexler had been called up to do in the 1980s. Pressler began to implement a series of sweeping corporate changes focused on customer research, strategic planning, new advertising, and store closures. Net income for fiscal 2002 bounced back to $477 million; however, Pressler knew he had his work cut out for him. The retail environment in 2003 remained fiercely competitive, prices were down, and the economy remained questionable. Despite these distinct challenges, both Pressler and Fisher were convinced that The Gap and its brands would carry on as a mainstay in the retail fashion world in the years to come.

Principal Operating Units: Gap; GapKids; babyGap; Banana Republic; Old Navy Clothing Company.

Principal Competitors: Abercrombie & Fitch Stores Inc.; American Eagle Outfitters Inc.; Spiegel Inc.

Introduction

noreply@blogger.com (Mafioso) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 18:56:00 +0000

A Brief Insight On Urban Trendz

Written By Don (Ae-King) Perry®

Ok I am doing this blog on Urban fashions or Urban “Swag” Trends as I like to call it. There’s a few things people must understand about putting themselves together, it’s not about what you wear but how u actually put them when wearing them as my close friend Kimon "Dj Egnite" Parker would call it “Blending The Beats” or simply put co-ordination.

You don’t have to break the bank to wear expensive designer clothing to look trendy and hip, they are a lot of alternatives that you may consider and give a try out when u can’t afford the overly priced designer clothing and accessories. I myself have discovered this over two (2) years now and I am loving it very much, the truth is I live in the Caribbean on a tiny Island known as Jamaica to most outsiders Jamaica is simply just known for its Reggae music, Beaches, Hotels and Sight Seeing to name a few.

The truth is Jamaica and Jamaicans are highly fashionable and I do mean that in every sense of the word. Designers across the world also take note of this but they don’t come out publicly and say it or gives us any credit for making a mark on fashion. You might be wondering what the hell on earth am I talking about but let me explained further and these are some of the stuff I have discovered for myself, Remember back in the days when Americans use to wear really big clothing like for instance double (XXL) T-Shirts and really big (baggy) jeans/pants? Sure u remember as that’s not really long ago.

Here in Jamaica we also wear our jeans slightly below our posterior (Ass) as a sense of style but now I am seeing popular fashion designers emulating that idea in the sense of Men low rise jeans and boxers. That’s just one example here’s another they are also making straight fit jeans and skinny jeans for me as well, this is something Jamaican men have been doing for a few years now. Clothing alterations isn’t anything new to me or most Jamaicans as we have been doing so long time with the aid of designated tailors and dress makers alike. Alternations are very much necessary because designers fail to deliver proper fit which ultimately leads to a quick visit to the tailors/dress makers, look at it this way you’re out shopping for whatever reason and u see a nice jeans with quality styling and fabric but u wish it was straighter or boot cutted as this addition would give it a much better look and makes it unique.

Well I myself have been doing this for quite some time now and I must say I get endless compliments on my clothing and how well they fit. I discovered this back in 2008 when I started wearing American Eagle, a popular American urban brand which to be perfectly not as popular here in Jamaica back then. American Eagle is not known here much Jamaica for three (3) obvious reasons:

1. No Outlet / Dept. Store available here in Jamaica

2. No Ads Running on the cable channels

3. Opportunities to travel are few and far between
I am going to talk about some of the main urban brands you might want to give a try that’s been around for years and has already been established as well. They are seven (8) Urban brands that I personally wear and highly recommend if u wish to look as the French would say Chic and Suave, I am going to begin with my personal favourite:

1. 1) American Eagle

2. 2) Aeropostale

3. 3)Abercombie & Fitch

4. 4)Hollister

5. 5)Gap

6. 6)Old Navy

7. 7)Banana Republic

8. 8)Aldo

All the above brands offer online experience and convenience for interested shoppers and shopping enthusiast alike. The only main drawbacks for shopping online would be that you’re going to need a valid credit card and valid shipping address, based on my experience with their sites I do think all offer international shipping this means you do not need to live in the US for them to be able to ship to you but in any event that they don’t and you live in Jamaica then you can use Global Courier Services , The Ebiz Centre and Mailpac.These companies provide you with an valid US address and if u don’t have a credit card then they would use their credit card and make the purchase and have it cleared and made available/delivered to you for a nominal fee.