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Fashion Retailer Ascena Retail Group Is in Trouble

The essential problem with Ann Taylor, LOFT, the other Ascena brands, and so many other national fashion retailers, is that they are continuing to try to sell “Parallel” fashions to customers yearning for “Paradox” fashion shopping experiences. Ken Nisch, chairman of retail design firm JGA, describes the distinction between “Parallel” vs. “Paradox” shopping experiences in my book, Shops that POP!:

Customers are increasingly fatigued with parallel environments. I think of Ralph Lauren or Talbots as being parallel—the store, the merchandise, the marketing, the branding are all absolutely consistent. Versus a paradox retailer where customers are invited to explore, engage and discover, so they can create a mix-and-match look. In a paradox retailer you never see a table in the middle with one sweater in four different colors with pants to match, such as at Talbots. Today’s shoppers openly seek self-expression through shopping and want to feel that they created the outfit, rather than it was created for them. This explains why retailers like The Gap are having such a tough time—they don’t offer their shoppers creativity or self-expression.

The future success of fashion retailers will be found when they offer up the unexpected in interesting, stimulating, and exciting ways. It takes a certain kind of shopper to thrive in these paradoxical environments. And these are the customers that Ascena brands need to attract:  women who want to put together their own unique look and who avoid parallel environments where it is all put together for them.

Here are some steps the Ascena brands need to take to evolve from their parallel worlds into a paradox fashion retailer:

  • Get rid of rack after rack of the same old thing – The brands need to move out of their corporate comfort zone into the customers’ with fashions that have a point of view, not dumbed down, rehashed looks. They need to amp up the design team and move fashions in and out faster, like fast-fashion retailers H&M and Zara have mastered.  Every time one shops in these fast-fashion stores, they discover something new and if they go back seeking something they passed up the last time they shopped, they are likely to be disappointed.
  • Design for the women Ascena brands aspire to wear their fashions – The Ascena brands need to look for fashion leaders, put her into their clothes so she becomes a walking billboard for the brands. Lane Bryant, for example, has a wonderful opportunity now that the average woman’s size is well within its range.  Plus-sized subscription service Gwynnie Bee has brought zest to the plus sized market that Lane Bryant should emulate, if not in the subscription model, definitely in the stores.
  • Right size each brand’s store footprint and redesign the stores that remain–With nearly 5,000 retail locations, Ascena is incredibly fat. It needs to dramatically cut its store counts, as it plans, all the while make each of the remaining locations true fashion destinations. Investments must be made to the tired, parallel store environments that have come to represent the Ascena brands. They need to transform each into a paradox destination where shoppers won’t walk right by them, but be drawn in to discover something new, different and exciting.

Today the Ascena brands are a completely known quantity. And while they may be trusted and dependable, that also makes them boring. They must strive for a “quelle surprise” experience for each of the brands’ target customers. It may be too late for some of its brands, but for Ann Taylor, LOFT and Lane Bryant, in particular, I think there is still time.