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Fields Report: Sweater Sales Are Jumping
The big surprise for fall merchandising for juniors is that sweater sales are skyrocketing.
It’s some of the market intelligence in the November 2013 report, released last week, from the Los Angeles–based Barbara Fields Buying Office. The Barbara Fields Buying Office has been forecasting juniors fashion and consulting retailers since 1981.
“Nobody anticipated that this sweater year would be such an enormous year,” Barbara Fields said of retailers she surveyed. “They didn’t plan their stocks accordingly. Everybody is chasing business, and it is hard to catch up. The availability is not there.”
But sweaters, especially those with an “Aztec” print, which features Latin American– and Navajo-inspired designs, were a consumer favorite for fall 2013, according to Fields’ report. Crochet sweaters have been very popular, too.
Mercedes Gonzalez, another trend forecaster and retail consultant, agreed that sweaters are a hot item. “They are making a killing at all departments—men’s, women’s, kids’,” she said. Gonzalez is director of Global Purchasing Companies of New York.
So far, styles that have not proved popular, according to Fields’ report, are woven shirts. Denim sales have been flat, but destructed denim seems to be doing well. Prints with skulls were losing some of their prominence. Also, studs, jewels and other embellished trims were not as popular as they have been in the past. Over a weekend in early November, Fields surveyed 75 shops on trips to New York’s SoHo neighborhood and the Westfield Garden State Plaza Mall in Paramus, N.J.
Other big trends are no big surprise to anyone who has taken a walk around a mall. “The trend of active business is good,” Fields said. The active drawstring pants, athletic varsity tops, jogger pants and yoga pants all have been popular.
Another theme to her trip was that retailers and vendors were not bullish about the upcoming holiday season.
“Vendors were complaining about business,” she said. “Some of the vendors were not optimistic about Christmas; there’s been little traffic in stores,” she said.
Retail organizations have been forecasting a solid Christmas. Last month, the National Retail Federation predicted sales will increase marginally during the Christmas season—3.9 percent, compared with 3.5 percent for the 2012 Christmas season. The International Council of Shopping Centers forecasts sales will increase 3.4 percent during the Christmas season.
Fields’ next report will cover fashion trends in Tokyo. It’s publishing Nov. 25.
