TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/071789/07178900.006

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 8.2 KB | 161 lines

                                                                                BUSINESS, Page 74

The Chic Is in The Mail


Spanning tastes from traditional to trendy, three catalogs
thrive by selling sportswear to baby boomers who have no time
to go to the mall

By Barbara Rudolph


    A well-tanned, fine-boned man lounges on a wicker chair in
the middle of a vast lawn, the picture of leisure in his
long-sleeve polo shirt and cotton twill trousers. A fresh-faced
young woman walks barefoot on the beach, smartly turned out in
white cotton shorts and a sleeveless blouse. A square-jawed baby
boomer clad in a classic linen shirt and cotton pants gazes
serenely along a shoreline as if he is planning a bright future.

    The people in these scenes, which evoke the studied
relaxation of a Ralph Lauren ad, look like the sort of folks who
would hate to spend any of their precious free time at a
shopping mall. In fact, their well-composed snapshots come from
the pages of America's popular new crop of mail-order catalogs:
Lands' End,* J. Crew and Tweeds. These three retailers are
reaping handsome sales by offering sporty, preppy wear to
customers who are partial to natural fibers and toll-free
shopping. Last year the three companies mailed a total of more
than 120 million catalogs to prospective customers in all 50
states.

    Many of the buyers are baby boomers, especially working
mothers, who have all but given up on department stores. Says
Tess Goodier, 36, of Vienna, Va., mother of two young children:
"It's so much easier than going over to J.C. Penney and chasing
after my wandering kids." While the new catalog kings have much
in common, each is trying to carve out its own identity:

    LANDS' END. The largest of the three, Lands' End posted
revenues of $456 million for the twelve months ending last
January, an increase of 35% from the previous year and not far
from the $580 million in sales racked up in 1988 by L.L. Bean,
still the captain of the sportswear-catalog industry. Lands'
End, launched in 1963 by Chairman Gary Comer, then a 36-year-old
advertising copywriter at Young & Rubicam in Chicago, sells
moderately priced, well-made staples. Among them: oxford-cloth
shirts ($19.50); cotton twill skirts ($32.50); and silk foulard
ties ($19). One of the company's specialties is the
many-pocketed canvas attache bag ($39.50), which for many people
has replaced the formal, hard-sided briefcase.

    Lands' End makes its home amid the rolling cornfields of
Dodgeville, Wis., (pop. 4,000), where 3,000 workers fill orders
in a warehouse the size of ten football fields. The
Middle-American locale is what Lands' End is all about. The
company cultivates a shamelessly folksy image, urging readers
of its magazine ads to call a "friendly southern Wisconsin
voice." Lands' End operators, many of whom are housewives or
students from the surrounding farm country, are famous for their
willingness to chat, even about the weather. "We're trying to
build a relationship with a customer, not consummate a sale,"
says President Richard Anderson.

    The catalog keeps the conversation going. The text is often
full of lengthy and technical explanations of how Lands' End
products are made. Example: "At our yarn-spinning facility,
every bale of cotton is inspected on both sides to insure top
quality. (They end up rejecting 10% of the bales -- fussy, fussy
folks.)"

    Lands' End wins friends by populating its catalog with real
people, complete with wrinkles and middle-age spread. Often the
models are employees or readers who have sent in photos of
themselves along with suggestions for the catalog. In one
recent issue, Roxanne Clouse and her teenage daughter Franny,
who are customers from Amazonia, Mo., sported bathing suits.
Says one appreciative customer: "I get tired of catalogs full
of models who wear a size 3."

    J. CREW. Based in Manhattan's up-and-coming Flatiron
section and housed in a loft building with hardwood floors and
exposed industrial pipes, J. Crew is far from folksy. The
company's offerings are decidedly casual but with a note of
sophistication. Arthur Cinader, 61, J. Crew's chairman,
describes the J. Crew look as "understated flair." Cinader,
whose family-owned firm operates a clothing-and-furnishings
catalog business called Popular Club Plan, started J. Crew six
years ago and had an almost instant hit.

    The catalog offers stylish variations on some familiar
themes in American sportswear. Besides selling a garden-variety
pocket T shirt ($12), J. Crew offers a prewashed (or
"weathered," as the catalog puts it) T shirt for $24 in 15
different colors, including watermelon, tangelo and mango. Other
characteristic items: Shaker cotton sweaters ($38) and unlined
canvas jackets ($68). This year J. Crew is branching into
clothes for the office as well. Fall offerings will include a
wool V-neck dress ($128) and a men's herringbone-tweed jacket
(about $250).

    J. Crew is a family affair: Cinader's 28-year-old daughter
Emily is the firm's president and chief of design, though she
had no previous business experience when she joined the company
in late 1982. Another daughter, Maud, 23, directs location
photography for J. Crew. Nepotism may work: the company expects
that its catalog sales this year will reach $150 million, up 50%
from 1988.

    TWEEDS. Since its first catalog was shipped less than two
years ago, Tweeds has become the spunky and surprisingly
successful upstart in the crowd. Estimated revenues for the
current fiscal year: $37 million. Compared with its rivals,
Tweeds' offerings are typically funkier, looser-fitting and more
cosmopolitan, "classics with a European twist," as Tweeds
President Jeff Aschkenes, 46, puts it. Many outfits are made of
linen, this year's trendy fabric, and come in offbeat colors.
Examples: pleated, prewashed linen trousers ($59) available in
Moroccan brown, sage, cadet or flax; and cotton-Lycra pants
($29) in the colors of sky and palm. Tweeds' designers take
about four trips to Europe each year to observe -- and sometimes
borrow -- the latest Continental fashions and fabrics.

    Based in a 100-year-old converted brick mill in Paterson,
N.J., Tweeds is the creation of refugees from rival J. Crew.
Ted Pamperin, 48, Tweeds' chairman, had worked as J. Crew's
executive vice president and Aschkenes as its merchandising
director. Though paid well at J. Crew, the two partners were
frustrated entrepreneurs. Says Aschkenes: "We didn't want to be
sitting on rocking chairs when we were 80 years old, never
having tried it on our own." They raised $6 million in venture
capital financing and now control a minority interest in the
firm. The rivalry with their former bosses should be lively
since the renegades have hired 18 former employees of J. Crew.

    Tweeds courts the youngest audience of the three. The
average age of its customers is 30, vs. 36 at J. Crew and 40 at
Lands' End. Many of Tweeds' customers, in fact, missed the baby
boom by a few years: 30% are under 23. To keep its youthful
clientele, Tweeds has sent catalogs to subscribers of Elle and
Glamour magazines and has taken out ads in college publications.

    All three catalogs are thriving at a time when the catalog
business in general has plenty to worry about. Besides a
slowing economy, the industry is suffering from rapid increases
in its basic costs for paper, printing and postage. Third-class
postal rates, for example, rose 25% last year alone. Another
problem is a bill introduced in the House of Representatives in
May that would allow states to force mail-order outfits to
collect sales taxes from their customers, a process that catalog
merchants view as a potentially nightmarish logistical and
financial burden.

    On top of those threats is the increasing crowding in the
mail-order business, which is already suffering the first phase
of a shake-out. Says Tweeds' Aschkenes: "It is definitely going
to happen. Every year there's more fallout." But by all
accounts, the three hot clothing catalogs are likely to thrive
because they have caught the attention of an ideal audience:
time-starved baby boomers who prefer to let their fingers do the
shopping.