Welcome to tog.com - Information on Girls in Sheer Clothing

Sheer hosiery manufacturers are making a run for customers who have turned away from pantyhose.

They are doing so by creating products that court younger women, with sheer looks that mimic the look of bare legs. Companies also are adding more products with shaping properties and extending the offering of plus-size hose.

These efforts come at a time when there are whispers that hosiery might be coming back into vogue. Women had turned away from sheer hosiery in favor of bare legs or socks worn with pants over the past few years. The industry especially hit a snag with younger women who have turned their backs on sheers.

"But now we are hearing that women are paying more attention to their dress and swinging back to dressing up. There's been an over-casualization in the workplace and now people are dressing up and that's good for sheers," says Diane Warren, vice president of brand marketing for Kayser-Roth's No nonsense. The downturn in the economy and the compression of the job market has caused job candidates to put more effort into their attire. Hosiery also showed up on the runways during 2002 fashion shows.

Retailers hope that trendiness will inject some life into sheers. A spokeswoman for Wal-Mart says early sales in 2002 are showing higher increases than last year. Kathy Steirly, vice president of Eckerd Corp., agrees. "There seem to be signs of some new life in the category," she says. Don Chang, founder of Forever 21, says his young and edgy shoppers are eyeing sheers again, too.

The business could use the boost. Sales of pantyhose slipped 9.4 percent to $535 million in food, mass (excluding Wal-Mart) and drug stores for the 52-week period ended Dec. 30, according to Information Resources Inc. Buyers say they hope to reverse the declines and notch up sales increases by a percent or two over 2001. According to the Hosiery Association, domestics hosiery shipments were down 1.3 percent to 295.9 million dozens of pairs for 2000, in the most recent data available from the association. Sheers took the biggest hit--down almost 13 percent in shipments. The total hosiery market, according to the association, exceeds sales of $6 billion.

Again, the key to building sales, sources say, is to bring in more young wearers. According to Sandy Sansavera, senior vice president and general merchandise manager at Ames Department Stores, only about 25 percent of women under 25 wear sheer hosiery. To address that, companies have created products that look bare. 'The bare P look has attracted the younger customer," adds Sansavera. He says Ames will expand its bare and nude looks into the Just My Size and L'eggs Bare lines for 2002. Other bare looks include Silken Mist Bare and Almost Bare from Kayser-Roth.

Niche products also help create the bare look, such as toeless hosiery, which allows women to wear pantyhose with sandals. "Silken Mist toeless [hose] are a great hosiery fashion alternative for today's open-toe shoe style. Now women can wear their favorite open-toe shoes and still have a virtually flawless leg appearance," says Sheila Lambert, marketing manager for L'eggs Silken Mist.

Target's fashion-forward shoppers have caught on already. At a store in Naperville, Ill., young women were recently seen stocking up on toeless styles to wear on vacation. "We don't have tans yet, so we need help," one told an onlooker. They also snapped up fishnets. At Forever 21, Chang says some specialty sheers are gaining momentum.

According to Sansavera, those looks haven't quite created a stir across mass ... yet. "The majority of the trends that are happening in sheer hosiery are in the higher-end stores and have not yet trickled down to our consumer base," he says of toeless, capri lengths and fishnets. That being said, however, he says tests continue so Ames can show consumers its styles are on par with prestige stores'. In fact, Ames has pared back some of its sheer footage to make room for more of the younger styles. Ames is beefing up its ad circulars in conjunction with its national advertising campaign to showcase the new styles.

Under its Hue logo, Kayser-Roth is going after young shoppers more aggressively. The company invested big sums into understanding the shopper before launching Hue sheers. "Many women think of hosiery as their mother's department," says Molly Mott, vice president of sales for department and specialty store chains. The solution has been to revamp the packaging to update the look, according to Mott. The new Hue program started with 650 stores in November and has been extended to 1,000 in the past few months. The brand is becoming associated with on-trend looks--a new option has a lily pattern sewn into the seam.

One surprising fact to emerge from the efforts to curry the favor of young shoppers is that they want control in hosiery. The theory that young girls have flat tummies that don't need help has been debunked. "Even the young girls want control," says Warren. As part of Almost Bare, Warren says new products include a French-cut control top and low-rise waistbands to accommodate for the ongoing lowering of pants waists.

The interest in control tops also has, logically, spread to larger-sized hosiery--one of the few bright spots in sheers. Although larger-sized pantyhose originally debuted to make hosiery more comfortable for plus-sized women, styles now sport more tummy flatteners and other shape-forming capabilities. Ames is solidly behind adding more large-sized stockkeeping units. "We will be rolling out the Women program from No nonsense and we feel this program will be very strong for our stores, as our customer is looking for the same fashion options as the average size," says Sansavera, who also stocks Just My Size.

Says Steirly, "We'll try whatever it takes to build this business back."