Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 27, 1991 TAG: 9103270384
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium
"We've had to restock several times," said Cleta Kiernan, manager of a Frederick's of Hollywood store in Hampton, where several hundred Langley Air Force Base personnel came home earlier this month.
When President Bush announced shortly after the Persian Gulf War ended that the troops would be headed home, military wives began converging on such shops as Frederick's and Victoria's Secret.
"We noticed a sales increase the very next day," said Kiernan. "Women started coming in - some with babies in strollers - and toddlers. We were as busy as we are during Christmas."
Ellen Appel, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles-based Frederick's chain of 66 stores, said the Hampton store had a 107 percent sales increase in one week.
"The Hampton store has had the third-largest percentage of all our stores," Appel said. "It's unbelievable. We are shipping things out as fast as we can, but our warehouses are depleted."
Frederick's top store with a one-week sales increase of 300 percent was in Clarksville, Tenn., near Fort Campbell, Ky. The store in Carlsbad, Calif. near the Miramar Naval Base in San Diego had a 206 percent increase.
A spokesman for Victoria's Secret in New York said not all the homecoming buyers are women. "The big surprise has been the amount of men buying lingerie for their returning wives," the spokesman said. "We are feeling Valentine's Day all over again."
Sales of dressy outfits also are booming, store managers say, and the most popular colors are red, white and blue.
"The wives are buying really nice-looking clothes like suits and dresses, but at least 75 percent of our sales are in lingerie," said Orla Mae Martin, a saleswoman at Added Dimensions in Norfolk. "Let me tell you, the ladies are ready."
by CNB