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Article: SLIMMING DOWN; AS RETAILERS EDIT THEIR MIX, DRESS SHIRT MANUFACTURERS STRUGGLE TO STAY IN THE GAME.
- Article from:
- Daily News Record
- Article date:
- August 19, 2002
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2002 Conde Nast Publications, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Few have not been affected by the challenges of retail this past year. Slow traffic, weak consumer confidence and a Dow Index at a five-year low have forced retailers and vendors to rethink their business models. This is all too true in the dress shirt market, where last fall's drop in inventory was a tough -- in some instances fatal -- blow to manufacturers who still hadn't rebounded from the dress-casual phenomenon of the 1990s.
Despite the efforts of vendors to recapture the interest of the American man with expanded assortments and a more casual design direction, confused consumers are not responding the way the industry had hoped. And so it seems that ...