Word: boom
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Indeed, more and more parents seem to want their children to look not only nice but striking and even chic. This trend has created a boom for sellers of upscale children's clothes and accessories. At Baby Boxers, a Los Angeles manufacturer, items like $28 print shirts have pushed sales to more than $700,000 in the firm's first eight months. Says Co-Owner Jaye Bernstein: "Our business has just exploded." Many companies that made their name in adult apparel are now moving into the children's market. Esprit, a popular label founded in San Francisco in 1971, began...
...sure, the surge in trendy children's goods is part of a broader prosperity in the baby business. The post-World War II baby-boom generation is now passing through its peak childbearing years; between 1980 and 1984, the number of American children under age five grew from 16.3 million to 17.8 million. The increase has brought good times for most children's clothing manufacturers, including traditional leaders like Wisconsin-based Oshkosh B'Gosh (1985 sales: $162 million). Demand for products like its sturdy overalls has almost doubled in the past two years...
...customers are willing to spend $483 for a pink silk taffeta party dress for eight-year-olds. Comments Stuart Robbins, a retail analyst with the Donaldson Lufkin & Jenrette investment firm: "Children's apparel and accessories are now a fashion business, not the commodity business they were when the baby-boom generation was growing...
Industry experts offer several reasons explaining why parents spend so lavishly on their little darlings. For one thing, many baby-boom mothers put off having children to pursue their careers and are only now having their first babies. And in most cases, couples buy more things for their firstborn than for younger siblings. Moreover, some two-career couples apparently try to make up for not spending enough time at home with their youngsters by showering them with fancy additions to their wardrobes...
Such rhythms of boom and bust are part of the mystique of Texas. Observes Historian Joe Frantz: "Texans are not like the Yankee who puts his money in the bank and collects compounded interest. We take risks. And when it doesn't pan out, we don't blame a man. Going broke is not an occasion for gloom. It just means you're short on cash." But as State Treasurer Ann Richards says, "This is the first time I know of that everything hit at once...