VF has launched another women's line, Wrangler America jeans for women

Our December was just fabulous." Medium blue is the best color, though she has seen success in a dark shade, stonewashed indigo. "We're also offering deep saturated colors in twill. Forest and natural are going to be the most important colors, along with taupes and browns, we believe. We'll have another new finish in '94, 'authentic' indigo, a medium shade antiqued to have the look of authentic faded bluejeans."

VF has launched another women's line, Wrangler America jeans for women, and it's showing "very good sellthroughs in our initial test program," said Phillip Dunn, VP-general manager of Wrangler America. He has described the line as "non-Western jeans." They are proportioned to fit, and silhouettes include classic, relaxed, and loose. "We're still primarily in the fashion basics end of the business, with different stonewashes and overdyed blues and blacks, anywhere from light stone to the dark ranges, and with vintage-style finishes as well. Most of our sales are in the relaxed fit but I think the next transition will be into a looser silhouette. We do see the relaxed fit continuing at least through '94. Colors, including natural, will be a part of our mix."

Basics are the mainstay of the Rustler women's line as VP-general manager Alan Bell described it for DM. "The stonewash is still good for us and the black-overdyed-black. Retail sales were a little slow but Christmas was good. We just released a loose-fit silhouette a couple of weeks ago, but otherwise it's all relaxed right now. Our customer doesn't like a really loose, baggy fit, so the new style is just a little more opened up than the relaxed, with a relatively sheath bridal gown narrow leg opening. Our core product is strictly high-volume issues. When a new finish has proven it's going to be out there for a while, we'll jump in."

Kathy Hurley mentioned that Rose's will "probably be testing some of those worn looks. We definitely know it is a look the younger customer is wearing. But we're not yet convinced, without some positive test results, that our customer is willing to pay the price for that look. I think some customers distress the jeans themselves, and for others, it's somewhat of a hard sell because they may not understand the fashion. It's coming strong out of the European market and I think it translates easier in a specialty Japanese school uniforms store environment where there is sales help to explain the fashion aspects."

BRUSH UP YOUR JEANSWEAR
Texture is the area where some newness is predicted by most of the industry representatives interviewed. The Arkin spokesperson pointed out that "manufacturers are trying to add fashion to basic jeans with overdyeing and things like that, but I think the volume is going to be in brushed, colored denim goods."

The Midwestern buyer concurred. "Brushed, colored denim and corduroy look good and rayon velvet will be good for holiday. Velvet will be mostly in black or maybe wine, but corduroy offers a huge variety of color." Eric Rothfeld said that Sasson will have "a brushed canvas that's very interesting," and Natalya Khorover added that the company will also present "some new black velvets for fall," as well as overdyed black denims with velvet treatments.

At Rose's, Hurley said, "We sold anything we had with a brushed, sueded, or softer finish. That seems to be important in denim, particularly in the colored side of the business. Some of the brushed fabric treatments in blue denim are also great-looking but they add price to the product. I think we have to be really cautious when it comes to the retail. Here again, we don't know if the mass market customer will appreciate the extra processing that went into it and what it does to drive up the price."

Barry Zelman of Faded Glory outlined several new fabrics he will offer: "We're doing a lot of brushed fabrics, of course. One we're calling coarseweave canvas. It has a lot of texturing and we feel it's a new step up from sueded bull denim, which we're also still doing. We'll have both in a lot of colors. Along with that, we'll introduce pigment-dyed corduroy jeans.