Youth-oriented retailer adding maternity wear line

Just in time for Back to School shopping, teen ethos retailer Forever21 is launching a line of maternity wear for the young mother to be.

Highly elastic leggings for $12, supportive belly panel wraps and hip yoga pants that cover a growing baby bump. And a free subscription to Baby Talk magazine for registering on Forever21.com.

Thus, one of the nation's fastest-growing retailers adds fuel to a cultural debate and entertainment bonanza on young pregnancy, especially by launching the line in states like California and Alaska that happen to have relatively higher teen pregnancy rates.

But it's also brilliant business strategy, according to retail consultants, and merely joining other smart retailers expanding their maternity wear: Old Navy, Abercrombie, Juicy Couture, high designers like Elle MacPherson and upper-tier merchant Nordstrom.

These retailers, sensing a movement afoot, see opportunity in offering something besides beige stretch pants.

Retail Strategy

Forever21 officials say they absolutely did not target markets with high teen pregnancy rates for their maternity line "Love21."

Rather, Forever21 had acquired several department store sites in California, Arizona, Alaska and other states, many with 100,000 square-foot spaces. That allowed the company to extend into many different fashion lines. That included maternity wear, just as any large department store might consider, said senior vice president Larry Meyer.

"We understand issues of teen pregnancy, and that topic is an appropriate concern," Meyer said. "We should all think about ways teen pregnancy could be prevented. At the company, we all have traditional values on this ... I have friends with kids who had teen pregnancies. But it's not because of the clothes out there."

And to emphasize the point, Meyer said 20 percent of Forever21 customers are teens, 45 percent are 18 to 24 and 35 percent are above 24.

Nonetheless, retail experts say that overall maternity strategy is brilliant.

Customers at Forever21 are value shoppers, said Doug Stephens, president of Retail Prophet Consulting in Toronto. On one side of the age divide are younger women aspiring to look older and more sophisticated. On the other side are older women looking to re-create an image of their younger days.

"I was just in a Chicago Forever21 and saw daughters and mothers both shopping there for clothes together," Stephens said.

Fashionably Pregnant

At more than 480 stores in several countries, Forever21 counts as a sizeable retailer, with around $3 billion in potential sales this year, Meyer said.

Generally, the economic power of the baby-boomer generation has taught all retailers the value in focusing on any one demographic group, Stephens said.

"You have to appreciate that a company like Forever21 has two ends to their pipeline, older and younger," Stephens said. "So what happens when a younger woman, devoted to your brand finds herself with child? Do you want to lose her as a consumer and risk her ending up shopping somewhere else? No."

Compared to years past, retailers say these are fantastic times for maternity fashion.

"For some odd reason there was a disconnect between regular fashions and maternity fashions - there was no fashion to it," said Jessica Reyes, founder of the maternity online merchant BabiesnBellies.com.

Old Navy now has an extensive line of maternity wear. And even the higher-dollar Nordstrom sells a long line of maternity designers, with an online store that sorts items by trimester, and sells a Juicy Couture-branded stroller for $450.

Fashion maternity store A Pea in the Pod now sells lacy maternity lingerie, jeans by the hip Lucky Brand, and recently launched a line of clothes designed by model Heidi Klum called "Lavish."

Cross Current

Like many retail trends, this theme operates amid cultural cross-currents. On one hand, U.S. teen pregnancy rates are generally dropping over time, despite being more popular on the TV lineup.

In the 1960s, the pregnancy rate of woman age 18 to 19 stood at 166 out of 1,000, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. By the 1970s, that rate fell by half to 82. By the 2000s, the rate fell again to 78 and has recently dipped to 73 in 2006. A similar drop-off happened with women age 15 to 17. Only women age 20 to 34 saw their rates stay relatively stable or rise.

On the other hand, teen pregnancy is a hot topic in entertainment.

Perhaps starting with the pregnancy of Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's daughter Bristol that rippled through U.S. presidential politics, unusually young or atypical pregnancies are immensely popular raw material for TV shows. Both MTV's "16 And Pregnant" reality show and "Teen Mom" are both going into new seasons.

Company

Adding a further layer to the issue, Forever21 is an overtly Christian-based corporation.

The founding couple Do Won (Don) Chan and his wife and business partner Jin, are committed Christians. The company prints the citation to a Bible verse on the bottom of all their shopping bags: John 3:16.

"This is a company that has made no secret that it's a religiously oriented company run by Christians," said Fashion blogger Lilit Marcus of TheGloss.com was among the first to pick up on Forever21's maternity line. She applauds Forever21 for offering fashionable maternity lines, but expects they'll attract criticism merely because the store tends to attract younger women.

"In our culture now, if you make any kind of concession that teen pregnancy exists, people assume you're glamorizing it," Marcus said. "But if you actually watch the TV shows like '16 And Pregnant,' if anything they show people in a miserable experience."

And perhaps proving the marketing is even more complicated, Marcus notes that models in Forever21 maternity line catalog wear no wedding rings. "I thought, wow," she said. "I can't believe a Christian company is OK with showing pregnant women not married."