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Retail's future is in the details

A glimpse at the annual industry convention shows the tweaks meant to improve products and guerilla marketing.

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published January 16, 2007

Retail business reporter Mark Albright is covering the National Retail Federation annual convention this week in New York. Here are some of his early insights:

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A Dallas startup is leading yet another attempt to get retailers and apparelmakers to solve women's trouble finding the right size. Fit Technologies reduced women to three body shapes and assigned each an extra number that can be appended to whatever standard sizes a store or apparel label uses. The Fitlogic system was tested successfully in missy sizes at 10 Nordstrom stores and two QVC shows and 97 percent of participants said the system worked for them.

"Once we get missy's sizes set up for people over 30, we'll turn to other age groups," said Cricket Lee, founder of the company. The company is trying to sign up retailers and apparelmakers. That's the stage predecessors never got past.

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Ever wonder why Kenneth Cole Productions Inc. has such an unusual name? The namesake and shoe designer wanted to make a splash on the cheap when he first tried to sell his shoes to retailers 20 years ago. So he borrowed a 40-foot trailer as a showroom he would park on a busy New York street for three days. Getting a parking permit required approval from a variety of utilities, but instant approval could be had for film production. "I changed the company name the next day and said we were filming the birth of a new fashion company," Cole said. "We set up klieg lights, sold 40,000 pairs of shoes and kept film in the camera most of the time."

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Lycra, the stretchy polymer made famous by swimwear and lingerie, is moving beyond the apparel business. Invista, formerly the DuPont textiles business, has made it a mascara ingredient as an eyelash extender. It washes out with water. Next up for Lycra: hair spray. "It adds resilience and flexibility," said Jean Hergedus, ready-to-wear brand marketing director for North America.

Invista is about to start marketing technology for clothing that changes color hopefully better than the brief 1980s Hypercolor T-shirt fad with body heat and another application of clothing fabric that can digitally track the wearer's heart rate.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or (727) 893-8252.

[Last modified January 16, 2007, 01:05:39]