THE TOUGHEST SELL : Women Hate to Buy Swimsuits, So Firms Try New Tack

From an office in the Los Angeles Mart, fittingly decorated with prints of shapely women in flashy swimsuits, Warren S. Gaudineer quietly directs a subtle drive to revive the nation’s swimwear business.

For Gaudineer, it is no easy task. A $50,000 study on his desk shows women simply hate to buy swimsuits, and hate even more the skimpy suits with low backs and plunging necklines that seem to dominate most swimwear shops. Even Gaudineer’s 90-year-old mother-in-law left a department store in disgust to go home and sew her own suit.

There must be more women like his mother-in-law, Gaudineer reasons. “There is a large group of women who are being overlooked.”

A chain-smoking salesman for chemical giant Du Pont, Gaudineer seems an unlikely choice for the job. Gaudineer doesn’t know a thing about retailing, and his employer, Du Pont, doesn’t make swimsuits.

Yet Du Pont is keenly interested in swimsuit sales. That is because the company makes Lycra, a special elastic fiber that is woven into nearly every women’s swimsuit. For Gaudineer, the mathematics is child’s play. The more swimsuits women buy, the more Lycra Du Pont sells.

That simple calculation has helped forge an unusual, 2-year-old alliance between the nation’s swimwear makers and their fabric supplier, Du Pont, in a quiet campaign to get women into new swimsuits. At Gaudineer’s suggestion, the swimwear manufacturers formed a industry association--called SWIM--that has spent thousands of dollars on surveys to figure out what kinds of swimsuits women want.

Beyond that, swimwear makers dished out more than $100,000 this year to train and help pay the salaries of “swimsuit specialists” in eight department store chains throughout the nation. The swimwear manufacturers hope to convince retailers that customers will buy more swimsuits if they receive personal attention.

At the same time, Du Pont itself has spent around $100,000 creating training kits for department store sales clerks that include pin-up posters for fitting rooms and a 19-minute videotape that tells clerks how to sell swimsuits.

Millions of dollars are at stake. Right now, American women cling to their old swimsuits for three years before buying a new one. By persuading women to buy new suits more often, the $800-million swimsuit industry could explode. It’s enough to make your head swim. “This could be a $2-billion industry,” said Al Zindel, a vice president with Jantzen Inc., the nation’s largest swimwear maker.

That’s a lot of Lycra. In fact, its probably much more than Du Pont can spin out of its mills, located in the United States and overseas. But even a modest increase in swimsuit sales would be welcomed by Gaudineer, who promised his bosses back at Du Pont’s headquarters in Wilmington, Del., that he could expand the swimwear business by 25% before he retires three years from now.

What that requires is nothing less than a revolution in the way swimwear is sold. For years, department stores have viewed swimsuits as a seasonal item that sells briskly only when the price is slashed. Unwilling to pour resources into swim boutiques, department stores counted on “fit specialists” from swimwear companies to help sell suits.

“We’ve had videos and seminars, and worked in the fitting rooms,” said Pamela Andrea, sales vice president for swimwear maker Rose Marie Reid Inc. “We’ve been holding the hands of department stores for years.”

Now, swimwear manufacturers, and Du Pont, are showing retailers how to sell swimsuits themselves. In intensive training sessions, swimwear makers are showing sales clerks the fine distinction between such styles as the Hollywood leg and the French leg. They are also showing retailers how to make dreary fitting rooms more comfortable.

Stripping a Factor

For the most part, retail executives don’t mind the unsolicited advice. “We’ll take whatever help we get,” said Eva Holzafel, a swimwear buyer for Sears, Roebuck & Co. who handed out 900 Du Pont sales kits to department managers in Sears stores this spring. “A swimsuit is a tough garment to sell.”

After all, says Milton Brandt, a Michigan fashion consultant who did market research for SWIM, “When else do you have to strip naked to buy something?”

Some merchants have tried fashion shows or unusual store displays to make the experience less painful. At the May Co. store in Palm Desert, thin models in stylish swimsuits pranced along a stage decorated with palm trees, sun chairs and beach blankets as Beach Boys music blared, all to “create a summer mood,” a sales clerk explained.

G. Foxx, a Hartford, Conn. department store chain, arranged its swimsuits on racks under signs that say “Big Bust” or “Short Torso” or “Wide Hips” in an attempt to help women find the right suit. Explains swimwear buyer Susan Chamberlain: “We group suits according to--I don’t want to say problem--a woman’s shape.”

Even so, it hasn’t been easy for women to find a suit that fits. SWIM consultant Brandt says women over age 35--the fastest growing population group--think most swimsuits, with their deep necklines and stringy straps, are too revealing. “Women are very sensitive about how they look,” observed Brandt. “They are not opposed to looking sexy. They are opposed to looking ugly.”

Brandt’s survey results stunned swimwear manufacturers, who hadn’t quite realized that aging baby boomers wanted less sizzle and more suit. “Women were upset,” said Jantzen’s Zindel.

‘Power Netting’ Featured

Swimsuit designers slowly lost their love for hip-high leg lines, and developed an interest in underwire. Rather than scout the beaches of southern France for the latest fashion trend, designers invaded lingerie departments to check out bras and girdles. “We spent a lot of time with bra construction,” Zindel said.

The new swimwear designs are a lot fuller and contain such features as “power netting,” a girdle-tight liner that flattens bulges. Other suits contain padded bras “to give women a little help where they need it,” said Rose Marie Reid’s Andrea.

Jantzen created a tight-fitting, one-piece suit called “five pounds under” because, said Zindel, “women always wish they were five pounds underweight.” Los Angeles swimwear designer Anne Cole came up with a simple, conservative tank suit that comes in 14 solid colors. “Women want to show off their shape,” Cole said, “without wildly exposing themselves.”

But one place in which women can’t avoid exposure is the fitting room. With flimsy curtains and dim lights, fitting rooms are so uncomfortable, said Du Pont’s Gaudineer, that “most women would rather have a root canal without Novocain than try on a swimsuit.”

At least some store executives agree that fitting rooms aren’t pleasant. “If you look good in our fitting rooms, you’ll look good anywhere,” said Carol Rothman, swimwear buyer for Macy’s California. “Sunlight doesn’t expose every lump and bump the way our fluorescent lights do.”

Anxious to put swimsuits in the best light, SWIM paid an architect $10,000 to design the perfect fitting room. It contains a cushioned chair, a three-way mirror, louvered doors and rose-colored lights “because it is closer to the light of the sun,” Gaudineer said. Proudly, SWIM sent colorful fitting room brochures to department stores around the country.

Videos Help

Not surprisingly, few merchants placed emergency calls to carpenters. With department stores under pressure to show profits, fitting room alterations take a low priority--especially in a seasonal department like swimwear. “It would be awfully expensive,” Macy’s Rothman said.

SWIM was discouraged, but undeterred. After all, the campaign to boost swimwear sales was being waged not so much in the fitting room as on the sales floor.

Leading the effort was Du Pont, which developed posters, brochures and two special videotapes. About 1,500 department stores got copies of “A Fitting Suit,” a 19-minute film narrated by an actress who offers sales tips as she flits through a well-stocked swimwear department. Some 800 stores, including Sears, received copies of “What Suits You,” a 6-minute film that features the same actress, dressed in a swimsuit. She bends and stretches to show customers how to make certain a suit fits.

“Look at the underarms, back, derriere and crotch line,” she cheerfully advises. “Sagging or drooping? Try a smaller size.”

Besides the videotapes, SWIM launched its ambitious “swimsuit specialist” program. For three days last fall, 16 sales clerks from eight department store chains--including May Co. and Macy’s California--gathered in New York showrooms, where they watched a steady stream of models exhibit new swimsuit styles. To better reveal the magic of elastic and bust seams, Jantzen’s models even wore their suits inside-out. “I took so many notes,” said Shelby Hundt, now a swimwear specialist for Macy’s California store in Pleasanton. Hundt said, for example, she now can distinguish a Hollywood leg--its low--from a high-cut French leg. “We learned the lingo.”

After the intensive training, the swimsuit specialists were sent back to their stores to sell swimsuits. It wasn’t always easy.

Take the experience of the May Co. in Palm Desert. It offered its customers free, 30-minute consultations with its swimwear specialist. Michele Ingersoll said she got dozens of telephone calls from women seeking advice but no more than a handful came into the store for help.

Foot in the Door

What Ingersoll found is that most women want to be left alone in fitting rooms when they try on swimsuits. “We’re told (by SWIM) to just walk in, but that’s a little too forward for me.”

Sometimes it helps to get a foot in the door. Macy’s Hundt recalls one 25-year-old customer who wanted a skimpy bikini despite “a pudgy stomach and not thin legs.” After watching her customer unhappily reject several bikinis, Hundt offered the woman a high-waisted, two-piece suit. The woman tried on the fuller suit and bought it. Said Hundt: “I knew it would look great on her.”

After the summer swim season ends on Labor Day, retail executives will learn whether the program worked. Early results indicate that swimsuits sales are up in some stores. Macy’s California, for example, says sales at its Pleasanton and San Francisco stores, the two branches in the program, are up more than 10% over a year ago.

That may be good news for Macy’s but its even better news for Du Pont’s Gaudineer, who anticipates nationwide sales gains of just 5% this year.

“If we can just get growth like that,” he said, wistfully. “I’ll have no problem reaching my goal.”