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To Chico's, sexy boomer lingerie glitters

The company's new chain, Soma, will offer mature women a better fit and more fashion in their intimate apparel.

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published July 13, 2004

Chico's FAS Inc., the casual apparel chain that put an unlikely Fort Myers on the casual fashion map, is about to quietly get into the intimate apparel business.

The fastest-growing apparel chain in the country, Chico's aims to sell lingerie to baby boomers whose average age is 53. The Soma by Chico's catalog is slated to debut around Thanksgiving.

Chico's is low-keying the Aug. 9 opening of its first Soma (that's Greek for body) in Bell Tower Shops in Fort Myers. Chico's designers, who have been using a hand-picked focus group of 300 women to shape their decisions, want to be sure they have all the unexpected wrinkles ironed out before they try to roll the Soma chain out nationally. Nine other stores open this fall, but the closest one to the Tampa Bay area will be in St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota.

The company has not developed plans for taking the chain beyond the first 10 stores.

Chico's marketers are taking on a challenge the rest of the lingerie industry has not had the nerve to try. Dominated by Victoria's Secret and the currently struggling Frederick's of Hollywood, the lingerie industry for years has been marketed as a sexy mix somewhere between the boudoir and the bordello. That has left the vast mature woman's market to department stores, which treat lingerie and its customers like commodities.

Department store foundations shops are often characterized as forests of hanging unmentionables and bare-wall dressing rooms. In contrast, Chico's hopes to romance the sale with comfortable dressing rooms and styles that flatter a variety of body shapes.

"Our emphasis is on fit and function, then on fashion," said Charlie Kleman, chief operating officer of the company that operates 584 Chico's and White House/Black Market stores in 46 states. "We think women from 35 into their 50s are entitled to the same sense of sexiness in intimate apparel. It's a vast unserved market that could do for Chico's what Victoria's Secret did for (its corporate parent) the Limited Inc."

Indeed, Chico's executives see opportunity in two industry shortcomings. Two out of three women are wearing the wrong size bra, so trained clerks in a tastefully decorated dressing room can develop trust and provide a service. About two-thirds of all bras sold domestically are white, so Chico's expects only 20 percent of its stock will be white.

"We're carrying a lot of color," Kleman said.

After reporting 40 percent or better annual sales increases for its eighth consecutive year in 2003, Chico's executives see Soma as an extension of its Chico's stores. Some will be located next door. Keys to the chain's success have been loose-fitting casual outfits that come in only four unique sizes - 0 or extra small through 3 or large. The chain delivers new styles every other day in a fashion cycle that lasts only eight weeks, but offers a constantly changing, yet highly edited selection.

While Chico's sizes can fit up to a traditional size 16, Kleman doesn't consider them plus-size customers because the average American today is a size 12. For most apparel companies, a size 6 is the optimal size their fashions are designed to show off.

That sizing disconnect helped make Chico's a popular fashion choice among baby boomers, so Soma will operate the same way. Half the projected sales are from new lines of sleepwear, activewear and bodywear in Chico's sizes. There would be some new fragrances stocked. The rest will be foundations in the same American sizes used by the rest of the lingerie industry.

However, Chico's track record is far from perfect. The chain last year quietly closed its last experimental growth vehicle Pazo, which was an ill-fated attempt to adapt the Chico's formula to a younger generation of 20-somethings.

Chico's has made virtually no public splash about the Soma launch. It has kept store and product designs under wraps so far. The chain doesn't plan to advertise or to mail Soma catalogs to the 4.5-million Chico's catalog recipients until the rough edges have been polished in the coming months.

Seventh Avenue and Wall Street analysts who have marveled at Chico's past performance, however, are fully aware of the planning effort that began two years ago.

"I don't think this is going to be a difficult sell at all," said Kurt Barnard, president of the Retail Forecasting, a Montclair, N.J., industry consulting firm. "The only question is, Why didn't anybody do this until now?

"Intimate apparel is a very popular fashion item. There's no reason women should be left out just because they don't have the body of a young fashion model."

[Last modified July 13, 2004, 14:17:55]