DALLAS — David Wolfe is surrounded by retailers, but he doesn’t pull any punches when he says the dollar is shrinking and scared people don’t shop.
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That’s probably what most people at the Dallas Market Center were thinking as they shopped for clothes and accessories to fill their stores come spring, but they weren’t saying it out loud.
Wolfe, creative director of Donegar Group, a New York trend forecasting company, said everyone is working hard to figure out where fashion fits these days.
On a positive note, "When families feel the cash crunch, kids are the last to feel the pinch,” he said, offering up the explosion of "Hannah Montana” and "High School Musical 3: Senior Year” clothes and accessories as evidence.
Lavish accessories will continue to entice women, along with great, simple sportswear and tailored, feminine suits and dresses, he predicted. Those pieces were shown on the runways in Paris, New York and Milan, but no one paid attention because they were modeled by 12-year-old, anorexic girls with funny hair and makeup, he said, exaggerating only slightly.
He doesn’t expect women to quit shopping for fashion, but they probably will change the way they shop. It will be more buy-now,-wear-now, and not shop months before the season. Throwaway fashion looks less inviting.
Consignment shops may feel a boom, too. Need comes into play more than ever. Women need real clothes, but a statement necklace or glamorous pair of shoes that offer an escape from the daily routine is always a good thing.
Historically, designers have delivered great fashion in trying times, he said. Wonderful clothes already are in the stores and on the racks. He thinks more will come.
Just don’t expect to see some of those clothes in the fashion magazines, which continue to overload readers’ senses with sexed-up, far-out fashion, he said. That’s not reality.
"It used to be ‘sex sells’,” Wolfe said. "I don’t think it does anymore. I think we’re oversold on sex.”
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