Aeropostale Delivers New Store for Trendy Tweens

P.S. Aeropostale has a good idea.

The retailer of fashions for teens is turning to tweens ages seven to 12 with a store concept it is calling P.S. from Aeropostale, and its timing couldn't be better.

For one thing, products for kids aren't necessarily hurting in the recession, as the success of the video game sector attests. For another, Aeropostale has demonstrated that it is on top of fashion for young people. It has forged 11 straight years of positive comparable store sales growth, chairman and CEO Julian Geiger pointed out in the company's fourth quarter sales call. And, for a third, tweens love to adopt what their older siblings are wearing. While the tween market isn't necessarily a push over, the company's comps suggest that teens will continue to wear their clothes. After 11 straight years of comp gains, it's pretty clear that the teens wearing Aeropostale's clothes today were tweens anxious to grow into them.

The timing is good for another reason as well. Standard & Poor's analyst Marie Driscoll, points out that the Aeropostale is nearing the end of a rapid growth stage as it reaches 800 domestic stores and approaches what is probably its potential of about 1,000 in the United States. So it needs a new growth vehicle to keep its finances gaining at the pace it is accustomed to set.

Driscoll said she expects the company to follow the same strategy at P.S. that it has adopted at its namesake stores, featuring a value-oriented, trendy but not too cutting edge approach to casual apparel and accessories. And Geiger did say that Aeropostale will take successful looks from the merchandise it sells high school students in its namesake stores and scale them so that tweens can "finally fit in merchandise that looks like Aeropostale, that comes from Aeropostale, but which will have a different brand representation, a different name than Aeropostale."

As conceived, said Geiger, "P.S. stores will be innovative, playful and fun" for its target audience and acceptable to the moms they drag along.

The first P.S. store of 10 scheduled to launch in the second half of this year is slated for a June opening, in time to ship its tween target audience back to school in its duds. The initial store roll out will take place in the New York metro area.

The P.S. initiative will cost Aeropostale about two cents of earnings per share in the first quarter, Michael Cunningham, the company's CFO said.

Despite all the enthusiasm about P.S., it's worth noting that the company is shuttering another concept Jimmy'Z that targeted an older crowd than Aeropostale stores. Although it only encompassed 11 stores, the Jimmy'Z closing is a reminder that the best-lain plans don't always work out. In the end, P.S probably has a better shot at success than Jimmy'Z did. It's easier to get a child in junior high school kid to dress like a high school kid than it is to get a collegian to dress like a high schooler.