The "Denim Glut," and is it real!

Hi Jennifer: As your humble west coast correspondent for all things fashion, fun and glamorous, I have done the research you asked me to do on the “Denim Glut” that has been so talked about for the past year. I visited around a half dozen stores and boutiques In Los Angeles and have spoken to the owners and managers about the high cost of premier denim brands and their loss of popularity. I also spoke with shoppers on the street and in the malls about the brands of jeans they buy and how these savvy women see the trend. Granted, this is not a conclusive survey by any means but it’s very telling of the trend and was extremely informative. I had no idea what to expect!

It seems that “7-for-all-mankind” is still the king of the premier denim lines with True Religion, and Citizens of Humanity following close behind but all of them have seen their sales dramatically decrease with the economic slowdown. Many store owners and managers have cut back on these lines with some cutting them completely from their inventory and open-to-buy. The common phrase was, “. . . . nobody wants to spend $250+ on a pair of jeans anymore!” And, “. . . they don’t sell like they used to . . . “ It appears that these lines just got to big and saturated. Store owners became tired of the brand and so did the customers. My research showed that the corporate office of “7” has even reduced their prices and even the newer items are dramatically cut in price.

I also discovered that wearing a premier denim line just doesn’t mean that much anymore, at least to the women I spoke to. It used to be a huge status symbol but they now view premier denim as a “been-there-done-that” kind of thing. They still want to look nice but they don’t want to spend the money anymore. I have to say that I was surprised by what I heard but not shocked.

The store owners and shoppers apparently believe that anything over a $100 is too much money for today’s stylish shopper. For the average shopper it appears that value is now more important then status.

The bottom line was this; no store owner wanted to get the premier line in and immediately mark it down 20-30% just to move it out the door. Wow! Now that was a surprise. So it’s true, there was a denim glut but not the way I thought it was going to be. There wasn’t too much denim just too expensive.

Thanks for the assignment Jennifer. It was incredibly fun and I look forward to the next one.

Lynn, Los Angeles.