The Return of Grunge!!!

Teen Retailers Watch in Dread
As Fashion Takes Scary Turn
Grunge Look’s Ghost Haunts
Retailers This Holiday Season

By MAUREEN TKACIK
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Like most retail buyers of teen fashion, Jason Schreiner, of the Buckle chain, looks to MTV for cues. What he sees there today: 1992.

“Just about every rock band you can name out there has got that same shaggy haircut,” he says, naming buzz bands like the Strokes, the Vines and OK Go. Rock ‘n’ roll and unkempt hair may be inextricably linked, but the last time the two coalesced in such an impressive shift in the teen aesthetic it was called grunge.

The emergence of a kind of nouveau grunge in the music scene could be a problem for retailers used to selling flashy fashions of the teen pop era.

Remember grunge? The economy was soft, “slacker” was

a lifestyle choice and Nirvana and Pearl Jam were in heavy MTV rotation.

Retail experts think this holiday season may mark an early stage of grunge redux, which could have some dire implications for the teen economy. The signs are there: Record companies are scrambling to sign rock — not rap-rock or metal — acts, retail spending has slowed and unemployment is up. The original triumvirate of the Seattle grunge scene has even resurfaced on the charts: Pearl Jam with a new album, Nirvana with a greatest-hits album and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell with a new band, Audioslave.

Evidence of the ennui is on display at the mall, where threadbare jeans and Converse sneakers have started to replace boys’ preppy-jock image. Girls, for the first time in years, seem to have moved past bare midriffs, sequins and other elements of what the industry calls “fast fashion.” On the music scene, Britney Spears has been replaced by messy-looking guitar acts like Avril Lavigne, an 18-year-old Canadian who looks like a teenage Annie Hall with a skateboard. She and many other style-driving music acts are taking their cues from the “antifashion” look that prevailed a decade ago.

IN: NEW GRUNGE

[new image] • Icon: Avril Lavigne

• Eternal Keeper of the Flame: Kurt Cobain

• Hair: Shaggy, fastidiously unkempt

• Uniform: Worn-out T-shirts, ’70s-style plaid Western shirts with snaps, low-rise blue jeans, baggy pants, undershirts

• Accessories: Ironic tie, backpack, chain wallet

• Shoes: Converse Chuck Taylors

• Anthem: ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’

• Music Groups: The Strokes, the Vines, the White Stripes, Audioslave

• Shops: Urban Outfitters, Hot Topic, Pacific Sunwear, thrift stores

Marketers and analysts think a change in attitude may be taking hold among teens. Irma Zandl, whose Zandl Group maintains a “panel” of 3,000 teens across the country, says money is a big issue. “It’s been a long time since you heard so many kids worry about money,” she says.

“I don’t care anymore whether or not I make a lot of money when I grow up as long as I have fun,” says Genevieve Holland, a 16-year-old in Alexandria, Va., who says she was more “materialistic” last year. She shops at discount and thrift stores, saving her money for concert tickets.

For kids who were in diapers a decade ago, the new acts may be the first exposure to raw rock ‘n’ roll style. “It sounds crazy, but this is the first time a lot of teenagers are hearing this music,” says Dan Heitkemper, who buys rock T-shirts for the teen chain Hot Topic Inc. and keeps “a steady supply” of Nirvana merchandise in stock. Explains Charlie Stilman, a 16-year-old from Washington, D.C.: “When I think of grunge I think of Oscar the Grouch from ‘Sesame Street,’ and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. … Anything from when I was a kid is awesome.”

It’s all a little worrisome for retailers, for whom grunge is a touchy subject. In 1992 — the year grunge gained household status and thus was disowned by its originators — teen spending on clothing entered a four-year slump. That was due partly to a struggling economy and also to the downmarket appeal of the grunge uniform of flannel shirts, Army surplus pants and thrift-store finds. The switch left retailers like County Seat, Contempo Casuals and Merry-Go-Round (once a $1 billion-dollar-a-year powerhouse) in bankruptcy court by 1996. Other trendy chains, like Limited Inc. and Wet Seal Inc., reeled.

Teen retailers started building again in 1996. Now, with more than twice the square footage dedicated to teen concepts as in 1995, the risks are back. “The three A’s” — Abercrombie & Fitch Co., American Eagle Outfitters Inc. and Aeropostale Inc. — have suffered all year from stagnating sales; trendier retailers such as Wet Seal and Bebe Stores Inc., where J.Lo-wannabes shop, have fared even worse.

“The only new thing is this simple, vintage, androgynous, I-don’t-care look, and sometimes those kids don’t want to shop at teen-focused specialty stores” says Brian Tunick, retail analyst at J.P. Morgan.

OUT: ‘FAST FASHION’
[out image] • Icon: Britney Spears

• Eternal Keeper of the Flame: Barbie

• Hair: Anything overgelled, overhighlighted

• Uniform: Midriff tops, embroidered jeans, sequins, ruffles, cleavage

• Accessories: Wide belts, glitter purses

• Shoes: Huge wedges; Skechers ‘energy’sneakers; untied laces; puffy, exaggerated skate shoes like the Osiris D3

• Anthem: ‘Oops! … I Did It Again’

• Music Groups: Mandy Moore, Kelly Clarkson, the Backstreet Boys

• Shops: Bebe, Wet Seal, Charlotte Russe

Still, the first grunge era taught retailers a thing or two. Chains such as Hot Topic, Urban Outfitters Inc. and Pacific Sunwear of California Inc. grew by catering to an “alternative” crowd. That’s important in getting kids to spend money emulating stars like Ms. Lavigne. “Girls equate artists like Avril with control over their own careers and their own image,” explains Laura Morgan, entertainment editor at Seventeen Magazine, which ran a “tomboy style” spread in September and put Ms. Lavigne on its January cover. “And realness is important these days…more important than glamorousness.”

The magazine spread, shot while Ms. Lavigne was snowboarding in Mount Hood, Ore., was sponsored by Quiksilver Inc., the boardwear brand. In “Complicated,” the music video that first broadcast her style to the masses, her outfit — white ribbed tank top, tie, black Dickies pants, studded wrist cuffs, chain wallet — came courtesy of the teen retailer Hot Topic, which sells identical accessories in its 400 stores. (Hot Topic also outfits Jack and Kelly Osbourne and is by far the biggest purveyor of Strokes T-shirts.) Not coincidentally, Hot Topic and Quiksilver — as well as Pacific Sunwear and Urban Outfitters — have sharply outperformed their peers in recent months, in some cases posting double-digit same-store sales gains, while their fast-fashion counterparts rang up declines.

On the boys’ side, the Strokes and their contemporaries have been so oft-imitated, they’re almost parodies of themselves. Mr. Schreiner, the Buckle Inc. buyer, says the bands’ no-frills look has brought boys into stores. “Guys are responding to this fashion very quickly, and we’re able to sell them the beat-up, vintage type jeans and Western shirts to complete that whole look,” he says.

At last the sickening pop trends have faded to near nothingness… so we go back and repeat ourselves? Nice to see a less materialistic view in youth, though…