Millennium Hoopla Adding Sparkle to Evening-Wear Sales
Santana Formal Accessories Inc. has made the cummerbunds, bow ties and vests that gussy up tuxedos for 27 years.
Never, owner Dee Tennant said, has there been a holiday season quite like this one, in which once-in-a-millennium sales are making formal-wear makers feel as festive as the champagne glasses and bubbles running through their special-issue Y2K designs.
Tennant said revenue for her San Fernando tuxedo shop will double in the quarter. Holiday hoopla also is expected to boost fur sales by 20% and has custom-made $10,000-and-up gowns waltzing out the door at the Gianni Versace boutique on Rodeo Drive. Anaheim-based Friar Tux, one of the area’s biggest tuxedo chains, is racking up wedding and event bookings by the dozen.
Consumers have not shelled out for high-priced New Year’s travel junkets or shows in the predicted droves, but they clearly plan to greet the millennium looking like a million bucks.
“This is going to be the biggest year I ever had,” said Bob Bennett, president of the Hackensack, N.J.-based Men’s Apparel Group, the leading men’s formal-wear maker. Holiday sales are up about 25% from last year, he said. “The problem is, what do you do for an encore?”
Men’s formal-wear rental and sales revenue has increased steadily since 1992, growing from about $850 million a year to about $1.2 billion in 1998, said Paul Greenwald, who writes a monthly newsletter on the men’s formal-wear industry. The millennium should propel those figures even higher--orders to manufacturers are up about 10% in 1999, he said.
For men, the black-tie crescendo is expected to start late this month, with rentals and sales reaching fever pitch in December. Men often leave tuxedo rentals until the last minute, but stores say they’re ready--customers should expect lines, but not shortages.
“We carry about 13,000 tuxedos,” said Greg Goodwin, president of Friar Tux, which has 20 shops in Southern California. “Your first choice may be gone, but we don’t anticipate any trouble.”
For women, of course, dressing to the nines is more complex than just leasing a penguin suit. Many began their search for The Dress by late summer, retailers said.
“Starting at the end of August, we have seen a healthy pick-up in evening wear and it just keeps going,” said Joan Kaner, senior vice president and fashion director for Dallas-based Neiman Marcus, which offers billowing gowns, pencil-slim skirts, bustiers and beaded jackets.
The millennium’s charisma seems to shred budgets into confetti.
“Most of [our] millennium evening collection is gone, sold out,” said Renee Borsack, a spokeswoman for high-end women’s clothier St. John Knits Inc. in Irvine. “People put orders in before we ever shipped it.” Among the items to evaporate: a $6,500 number embellished with Austrian crystals.
“People had no resistance to price,” Borsack said.
Even used evening wear is expected to be in extra demand.
Recycled Rags in Corona del Mar, which sells designer clothing passed down from area residents, projects a 40% spike in sales this holiday season over 1998, owner Audrey Patterson said.
“Everybody seems to be going to a party this year,” she said.
A combination of consumer trends appears likely to sustain strong formal-wear sales even after the New Year’s buzz wears off.
Thousands of couples deferred weddings to 2000, seeing romance in the unforgettable date. About 150,000 more weddings are expected next year than in 1998, Greenwald said.
Many companies and industry associations are making annual events more memorable in 2000 by upping the attire ante to black tie, said Dan McDearmid, senior vice president of sales and marketing for the Gary’s Group LLC, the parent of top regional chain Gary’s Tux Shops.
Plus, as Americans dress more casually at work, they increasingly choose formal wear to mark important social milestones, industry experts say.
“Americans hate ties, they don’t like suits,” Bennett said. “Dressing down is what’s happening. But because everything else is so casual, for special events, people will dress up.”
To capitalize on millennial fervor to dress up, manufacturers and retailers also are showcasing themed accessories, from gem-studded clutch bags to men’s embroidered vests to champagne glasses etched with 2000.
“Anything that’s collectible is pretty much on fire,” said Victor Lipko, chief executive of Judith Leiber.
The New York-based purse maker shipped its first collection of 200 $3,800 clutch bags to Saks, Nordstrom, Bloomingdale’s and a few others.
“Not only did it sell out to the piece, if I wanted to produce another 100 tomorrow I could probably do so and sell them,” Lipko said.
Subsequent millennium-themed purses also sold out, he said. The final collection includes a $4,750 sterling silver clutch and a gold-plated version with a $5,500 price tag.
Tiffany & Co. at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa is selling sterling silver horns, party hats and noise makers priced from $250 to $350, as well as millennium champagne flutes at $27 a stem.
“People came in from the moment we put them on the shelf and bought 10 and 12 at a time,” said store manager Jo Ellen Qualls. “People love the idea of having something that’s kind of a keepsake.”
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Putting on the Ritz
With millennium celebrations, revenue from sales and rentals of men’s tuxedos and accessoriesis expected to rise this year. Sales and rental revenue, in billions:
1999: $1.4 billion*
*Projected
Source: International Formalwear Assn.
