Specialty Stores

NEW YORK -- It's 9 a.m. and the city is fogbound, but designer Sigrid Olsen is grinning from ear to ear.Twelve models are parading her clothes on a runway, and editors from Vogue, Allure and Mode are in the audience.It's a thrilling moment for her, since this is her first New York fashion show as a member of the prestigious Council of Fashion Designers of America."This is a huge step up," she says.No kidding. Many lesser-known fashion houses would have no hope of drawing such important editors to a first show.

Consumers in search of videos, electronics and all things Pokemon packed shopping centers during the post-Thanksgiving weekend, giving retailers one of the strongest starts to the holiday selling season this decade.During the three-day weekend, sales at stores open at least a year rose 5.2 percent, compared with those days last year, according to Houston-based TeleCheck Services Inc.Thanks to a healthy economy, with low unemployment and high consumer confidence, the percentage increase was the strongest since Thanksgiving weekend 1993, the check acceptance company reported.

American Retail Group Inc., the parent company of Norcross, Ga.-based Uptons department stores, will close the 75-store chain, which has two outlets in Maryland.More than 4,000 people, including the 99 employees of the stores in Columbia and Gaithersburg, will lose their jobs.The stores will close by the end of the year after liquidating their inventory."It's a very competitive industry," American Retail spokeswoman Shira Weissman said yesterday."Our financial performance is not meeting our expectations."

Consumers hunted bargains in the nation's stores in November, favoring discounters and specialty chains over department stores, and leaving winter apparel untouched on the racks amid spring-like weather throughout much of the nation.The nation's biggest retailers, which reported November sales yesterday, just barely met expectations, as gains at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Gap Inc. helped offset sharp declines at department store chains such as Sears, Roebuck and Co."The department stores have taken a bloodbath," said Kurt Barnard, president of Barnard's Retail Trend Report in Upper Montclair, N.J. "The discount stores are doing quite well and thriving at the expense of the department stores."

Consumers went shopping at specialty stores and discounters in October, handing a blow to department store chains that have been losing customers.Reports on October sales from the nation's biggest retailers yesterday showed mixed results, amid concerns over Wall Street volatility and signs of an economic slowdown."

Wal-Mart, the retail chain giant, is making overtures to open a scaled-down store in Mount Airy, a town where small business is a way of life.Although the deal is far from complete, many of the 5,000 residents of the town, which straddles Carroll and Frederick counties, oppose it. They have have dubbed themselves "Us Against the Wal," a name borrowed from a Pacific Coast town that repelled the giant of retail from its shores."

Hurtling toward the unknown future at the end of the millennium, consumers seem to be looking nostalgically back over their shoulders, longing for the comfort of items from days gone by - even if they're not quite old enough to have been around when those particular days went.In addition, makers of household products are increasingly making it easy for renovators and others with a reverence for the past to capture the historic look without sacrificing modern convenience.Here's a sampling of some things that are brand-new, designed to look old.Grandma's StoveHand-built stoves from Elmira Stove Works of Waterloo, Ontario, look like Grandmother's ornate, cast-iron beauty, but the "Cook's Delight" offers gas burners or smooth glass cook tops, and standard, true convection or gas ovens.

WILMINGTON, Del. -- Montgomery Ward Holding Corp. is considering closing more stores to cut its losses as part of its bankruptcy reorganization, company officials said yesterday."

Ritz Camera Centers Inc., the nation's largest photo specialty chain, has acquired one of its biggest competitors in a move to strengthen its presence on the West Coast, the Beltsville-based retailer said yesterday.The purchase of Kits Camera Inc. of Seattle gives Ritz 140 more stores -- for a total of 810 locations in 47 states. The sale, for an undisclosed amount, was closed Monday.The deal is the latest in a recent series of acquisitions for the independent Ritz chain, which started as a portrait studio on the Atlantic City Boardwalk about 70 years ago and opened one of its first retail stores in Baltimore in the 1930s, said David Ritz, president and chief executive.

The glimmer of gold may be lighting up Christmas for the wealthiest, but retailers say the majority of shoppers aren't spending big this year.With less than a week before the big day, retailers say they will have an average selling season."

A new grocery store anchor for Wilde Lake is not viable, so re- inventing the space as a mixed-used development with residences, offices and retail is the best way to make the village center successful for another 30 years, its landlord said this week. "How do we create a place that's special and vibrant and different from what we already have?" asked Geoffrey Glazer, vice president of acquisitions and development for the mid-Atlantic region of Kimco Realty Corp. "We're trying to make this a very festive place [where]

Shopping at Barstons Child's Play in North Baltimore yesterday, Elizabeth Carhuapoma had safety on her mind as she heard news of the latest toy recall by Mattel. "Certain brands I trust more, so it's disappointing when Mattel and Fisher-Price drop the ball," said Carhuapoma, 34, of Baltimore, who bought a Webkinz doll for her 6-year-old son Ethan. "So we got into more specialty stores to get higher-quality toys even though we pay more." While big toy retailers and discounters scrambled yesterday to pull millions of toys from stores across the country, independent shops like Child's Play say a wave of recalls of Chinese imports is bringing in customers worried about lead paint and other hazards.

Attention shoppers: Pottery Barn, McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurant and Lucky Brand Jeans are coming to Westfield Annapolis Mall. Mall officials announced yesterday that 21 national retailers -- 10 of which are new to Anne Arundel County -- would soon call Westfield home and gave community leaders and entrepreneurs a hard-hat tour of the expansion site, which is scheduled to be complete in November. New stores range from a variety of popular clothing retailers, such as Levi's and H&M, to specialty stores and boutiques.

Officially, the calendar still declares it summertime. But this weekend, fall has arrived -- in stores, at least. It's Labor Day weekend, and that means it's time to shop for a new fall wardrobe. The prospect is thrilling for some and daunting for others. A new fall wardrobe might amount to great outfits and accessories, but it could also mean sucking the fresh-from-summer-vacation bank account dry. It doesn't have to be that way, fashion experts say. Fall shopping on a budget is not an oxymoron.

Safeway Inc. is caught in the middle of extremes in a supermarket world where specialty stores dominate one end and discounters the other. With new television commercials set to begin Monday, the California-based company - the second-largest grocer in the Baltimore area behind Giant Food - is spending $100 million on a new advertising campaign. To further redefine itself, the 90-year- old chain is remaking stores, its logo and its slogan. "Wal-Mart at one end of the spectrum, and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's at the other end of the spectrum have chipped away at the total grocery share," said Michael Minasi, Safeway's senior vice president of marketing.

IN RECENT YEARS, the Baltimore region has mourned the passing of some of its favorite department stores. Names such as Hutzler's and Hochschild Kohn are mere reminders of a bygone era. The purchase of the May store conglomerate by its industry counterpart, Federated, will most likely lead to the addition of the familiar name of Hecht's to the ranks of the missing. Why has this happened, and what does it mean? As recently as 25 years ago, we could identify many towns by their department stores.

From scenes of Macy's in the Christmas movie Miracle on 34th Street to baby boomer recollections of the retail palaces with elevator operators and tearooms that once anchored Main Street, department stores tap a vein of nostalgia among shoppers. But yesterday's announcement that Federated Department Stores, which owns Macy's and Bloomingdale's, is buying May Department Stores, which owns Hecht's and Lord & Taylor, signals a turning point for the department store trade and the era of mall shopping it helped shape.

When they shop for clothes at the mall, Ashley Valis and her friends check out Express, American Eagle and Abercrombie & Fitch. "They know what's in style," said Valis, 19, shopping at Towsontown Centre in Towson. "On campus, everyone is walking around in Express things." Given the popularity of the "hip" stores, Valis, a University of Delaware sophomore, might be surprised to know of the trouble lurking for some apparel chains - Gap Inc., for one - or that the specialty retail category as a whole has faced months of sluggish sales.

At Andersen-Becker Inc., nothing is simple. Long evening coats are adorned with gold fabric along the cuffs and pockets, ostrich feathers dress up necklines and cuffs, shirts are made from a collage of fabrics and artsy ornaments sewn together. "Everything we do is decorated, everything we do has an artistic component," said Lee Andersen, one of the company's founders. Andersen, 44, and her partner, Joan Becker, 60, own Andersen-Becker, a company that designs and manufactures Lee Andersen artwear - a line of clothing with hand-designed art on it - and sells the clothing wholesale to specialty stores around the country.

Robert A. Sulak has enough on his mind to rouse him at 3 a.m. some mornings. For starters, there's 25,000 cubic yards of concrete; 3,000 construction workers; a dozen general contractors and dozens more subcontractors; nine miles of road work; leases, permits and delivery dates for 190 specialty stores and 16 anchors; a rainy summer; problems in the food court and the matter of whether Books-A-Million will cover its entrance with tile or painted concrete....