Though there is no written news about what is going to happen in the future, I think that they will be doing a lot better than this last year. There name has gotten bigger thanks to celebrites such as fashion icon Rachel Bilson, and they also have dropped thier prices on select items to get more shoppers in. I think that it was a very smart idea for them to do that, and I think it will help their business in the future. Lets hope that they dont flop like Abercrombie and American Eagles spin off chains. I would not only lose a favorite shopping place, but also I would have nothing more to write about in this blog, and I know you guys dont want that to happen. ;)

Until then,

Fashion Madewell.

Though the ideas are not out there yet, I have got some ideas of my own for Madewell to go green. Instead of donating the jeans that are donated in return for a discount to the needy (not that that is a bad idea) they should recycle them into the factories to use on a special line of cheaper jeans for people to buy. Not only would it be cool to be wearing hundreds of threads of denim that have traveled places around the world, people would buy them because they were affordable. It would help everyone out. The people who turn the jeans in get a discount on a new pair, and people get a discounted price on old jeans made new. It really fits into the whole, Madewell theme if you ask me, and what could it hurt? They are making money either way.

Another idea that crossed my mind was that they should collect jeans to be recycled and made into other products, such as a chair or bags or anything. Even coats could be made with them and then sent to places where kids needed coats but couldn't afford them or did not have them readily available. You can make anything useful with recycled denim. Just last year a tornado hit where I live. Our fashion program made rescue bags out of denim and then filled them with home necessities that we may sometime take for granted. These people had nothing and we gave them things such as snacks, tooth brushes and other toiletry items. With a little effort and a little love you can do anything! Especially with denim!

Want to go green while shopping? Madewell does! Here is a new promo I found.

The Madewell SoHo store (in NYC) will be hosting a special Denim after Dark event this Thursday, 12/3/09, from 7 to 9PM.

Moreover, Madewell stores across the country are celebrating Denim after Dark events.

Some benefit events include:

• 20% off all jeans
• Festive sweets and treats
• Great tunes

Lastly, Madewell is running a Holiday Denim Drive. You can drop off your old jeans at any Madewell store and they'll donate them to a charity. In return, you'll get a special discount of 15% off your first pair of Madewell denim in the new year. This offer expires 12/31/09.

Now you can feel good about getting rid of the old and in with the new! Instead of throwing away your old jeans that will then get turned into the landfill, you can give them to the needy and get new ones for 20% off! They may not look new depending on the style you buy, but hey, to each his own! Enjoy shopping with a little green thumb when you handover your payment to the cashier. The needy, the world and the company thank you.

An Ugly Time for Fashion as Spinoff Chains Struggle

J. Crew chief executive Millard S. Drexler has said the retailer made mistakes -- including charging too much -- at its Madewell spinoff stores. (By Andrew H. Walker -- Getty Images)

By Ylan Q. Mui

Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 10, 2009

Opening more stores wasn't enough for retailers during boom times. They wanted to create new forms of life.

Specialty chains spun off new concepts that targeted different demographics. Teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch spawned Ruehl for postgrads, while rival chain American Eagle created Martin + Osa with casual clothes for young professionals. J. Crew launched Madewell, a sort of hipster little sister. Aeropostalehad a rock-inspired chain called Jimmy'z.

But now their fledgling concepts are struggling in the face of the worst recession in decades. At best, they have become distractions to the companies' already embattled management. At worst, they are a drain on earnings -- and some are shutting down altogether.

"It's hard enough for new brands to gain traction in a new environment let alone in the worst recession in decades," said Todd Slater, an analyst with Lazard Capital Markets. "In downturns, many new initiatives are sidelined."

Last month, Abercrombie announced it will close its 29 Ruehl stores, including one in Tysons Corner Center. Jimmy'z went dark back in February. Some analysts wonder if American Eagle will pull the plug on Martin + Osa. And J. Crew executives have admitted missteps in fashion and pricing at Madewell.

Retailers are under enormous pressure to reinvigorate sales and slash costs. June sales at stores open at least a year -- a key industry measure of health -- dropped 4.7 percent compared with last year, according to data released yesterday. Specialty retailers took one of the biggest hits, with sales at Abercrombie plummeting 32 percent in June, the worst performance of any retailer yesterday.

During flush economic times, retailers embraced new concepts as a way to increase sales. Many chains had already saturated shopping centers with new stores, so if they wanted to win new customers, they had to create new concepts for them to shop.

"One thing everyone's afraid of is [a chain's] maturity," said Brian Tunick, an analyst with J.P. Morgan.

Some spinoffs have taken off. Victoria Secret's collegiate-inspired Pink stores are considered one of the most recent success stories. American Eagle followed suit with Aerie, which also has experienced solid results. Retail experts consider Gap's launch of Old Navy in the 1990s one of the greatest hits ever, though the chain is struggling now.

But dismal sales have forced some retailers to think twice. Many are retrenching by shutting down stores, slashing staff and marking down prices. And investors have little patience for money-losing concepts.

"Later Jimmy!" read the headline for a research report by Jefferies analyst Randal J. Konik. "Other retailers should follow suit."

Aeropostale's reputation for bargains has helped it deliver one of the few strong performances during the recession, and it was the first to jettison its money-losing concept in February. Jimmy'z had 11 stores with an L.A. rock vibe targeting 18- to 25-year-olds. The company cited macroeconomic conditions in closing the brand, which it had launched in 1995.

Abercrombie's Ruehl stores, launched in 2004, were designed to resemble a Greenwich Village brownstone. Unlike most stores that showcase their wares in their windows, no merchandise was visible to mall pedestrians, a thumping bass line and the scent of a musky cologne the only invitations to walk inside.

But though the design was elaborate, analysts said the clothing -- torn denim, slouchy T-shirts, soft camis -- was too similar to the merchandise in traditional Abercrombie stores. The concept lost $58 million before taxes last fiscal year. Abercrombie also said closing the chain will result in about 200 job cuts.

Industry experts have been speculating that American Eagle could close its unprofitable Martin + Osa brand. But American Eagle executives said sales at the chain have picked up 7 percent from last year, with particularly encouraging signs in its women's business, and they hope for further improvements the rest of the year.

J. Crew chief executive Millard S. Drexler has acknowledged that clothing at its Madewell spinoff was too basic and expensive, particularly the jeans. The concept is costing the company about $15 million this fiscal year and it lost about $11 million last year, according to Needham analyst Christine Chen.

In a recent conference call with investors, Drexler said that when plans for Madewell were drawn up three years ago, the company decided to start denim at $98 -- and shoppers balked. Now the cheapest jeans are $59.50.

"So frankly, in hindsight, a mistake," Drexler told investors. "The world is kind of changed dramatically in that regard."

Bringing a new concept to profitability requires a large investment. The rule of thumb, Tunick said, requires 80 to 100 stores ringing up $400 in sales per square foot to break even. Closing a concept now doesn't always mean it was doomed to failure. Few predicted the consumer meltdown that occurred last fall.

"I don't think a weak-performing new concept or spinoff is indicative necessarily of anything more than a flaw in timing," Slater said.

And retailers are not abandoning all hope of innovation. Abercrombie is slated to open a new iteration of its surfer Hollister chain called Epic Hollister in New York later this month that is touted as 40,000 square feet of "pure California fantasy." Aeropostale recently opened a new store for tweens called P.S. From Aeropostale, with nine more planned for this fiscal year.

"If you're not moving now to be there, you're going to be playing catch-up by the time the consumer returns," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst for NPD Group, a market research firm. "It's the world's worst time to be sitting still."

I think that this article is correct in the fact that it was a bad time in the shopping market to open all these stores that were just as high priced as the ones that opened them. Shocking? No, if they will charge to much for it once then they will charge too much for it again. I do think that J. Crews Madewell CEO learned a valuable lesson in all this mess. They realized they were not getting as many customers as they needed and they therefor dropped the prices all together and people noticed. Smart? Yes! Now people can shop the great look of Jcrew for less, which is what people wanted in the first place. It just took a mistake to get it fixed.

Wondering how your favorite store is doing during the crisis? Some would say not so good considering reports show that they are down $11 million dollars from last years reports. Read for yourself and form your own opinion.

A CLOSER LOOK: J. CREW CONTINUES TO GROW WITH MADEWELL

FEB 18, 2009 1:30 PM

There’s no doubt about it – it’s tough out there for apparel retailers. Faced with a stagnant economy and a brutal slowdown in consumer spending, most have sharply cut back expansion plans to save cash. But not every firm is waiting for the economy to recover. J. Crew Group Inc., the New York-based preppy clothing chain, has slowed down its growth of its namesake stores. But at the same time, it is continuing to expand its new urban concept, Madewell.

“We have not cut back there,” CEO Millard Drexler said of the Madewell chain at an investor conference last month. “In fact, when there are the right deals, we are making them.”

The company certainly has not been immune to the recession. J. Crew does not report its fiscal fourth quarter until March but it has already cut back its expectations, saying it will likely report lower-than-expected sales. In January, J. Crew warned investors it would record a loss for the quarter along with a decline in same-store sales in the mid-teen range. J. Crew largely blamed the aggressive discounting it was forced to do to get rid of fall and holiday inventory. At the January conference, Drexel called the environment “probably the most severe any of us in this room have seen,” adding he has “no prediction about how long it will last.”

To respond to that environment, J. Crew has cut back half of its planned growth in its namesake stores and is targeting a 25 percent cut in its capital expenditures for the 2009 fiscal year. On its third quarter earnings conference call in November, the company said it would chop its square footage growth in half in 2009. J.Crew has also said it may not pay down as much debt this year as it normally does at the beginning of every year.

But the one thing J. Crew is not doing is cutting back on the growth of its small Madewell chain. Drexler made clear on the third quarter call that the cut in the company’s square footage growth excluded the Madewell openings planned for the year and he has frequently said he is pleased with the performance of the small business.

The chain caters to a young, hip clientele looking for skinny jeans, trendy bags and fringe-heavy scarves. Drexler has likened the chain, which specializes in denim and sells its own denim brand, to Levi-Strauss.

There are now just 11 Madewell stores open. The most recent store opened on Feb. 18 in Boston on Newbury Street—a district known for its pricey and hip boutiques. (Both Chanel and Marc Jacobs have stores there.) J. Crew has said it will likely open between 10 and 15 Madewell stores in 2009, adding that it will continue to be conservative in opening new stores. “Penciling out deals these days has to be done with a very, very conservative mindset,” Drexler said.

Morningstar analyst Brady Lemos says he believes the company is mainly waiting to open stores until it finds the right locations for the right prices now that more landlords are willing to offer lower rents and better lease terms. The company has likely been able to find better mall and urban street locations as other chains shutter stores, Lemos says.

J. Crew does not break out the performance of the Madewell chain in its earnings reports, so Lemos says it’s “kind of hard to tell how successful the concept has been” – a situation made more challenging given the small number of stores. But Cowen & Co. analyst Laura Champine says that Madewell performed better than expected in 2008. She expects the company to launch an online site to accompany the Madewell retail stores in fiscal 2009.

Although the Madewell stores are still operating at a loss – and are expected to for the remainder of the year – once more stores open up, that could change. Lemos says he expects the company to ramp up store openings as soon as the environment for retailers gains some strength and sales start to recover.

--Lauren Shepherd