It used to be part of every smartly dressed woman’s wardrobe, along with hats, gloves and matching purses: the spring coat. The lightweight outerwear often debuted around Easter and was worn until June. They came in a variety of attractive colors, including navy and cream.
For a variety of reasons, the spring coat had fallen out of favor with consumers in recent years. That makes sense in a place like Chicago, where spring sometimes fails to appear altogether, and shoppers simply trade in their winter coats for summer jackets. Yet shoppers have decided to take a pass, even in parts of the country where spring is an actual season.
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Spring coat selections at many retailers have dwindled, and in some cases they have disappeared.
But not this year: The spring coat is making a major comeback in 2001, so much so that some retailers, including Marshall Field’s, have already sold out of some items and are scrambling to order as many more as they can.
“We have doubled our spring coat business year-to-date,” said Kris Sherek, senior buyer for coats at Marshall Field’s. “There’s so much newness out there.”
Driving the renewed interest are spring leathers in several colors, including red and a medium-brown shade dubbed “luggage” by Donna Karan and other designers. Especially popular are three-button blazers that can be worn indoors during cold weather and outdoors as a coat when it warms up.
New iridescent finishes on fabrics also are attracting shoppers, as is the new midthigh length.
Casual coats in enticing pastel shades of blues, butter yellows and lilac are garnering the attention of those who can’t wait for spring. And selection is expanding, with new designer lines such as Anne Klein II jumping into the spring coat arena for the first time.
The fashion revival at trench-coat king Burberrys Ltd. undoubtedly has played a role in making the spring coat cool again.
“Spring coats are so important that the fabric and detailing of the icon trench actually provided the inspiration for our spring skirts and dresses,” says Sheryl Dyer, general manager of the Chicago Burberrys store.
There’s also a very practical reason for the renewed interest, retailers say: A spring coat is lightweight and functional. It works well with everything from pants to skirts, and is popular among professionals who may be traveling from a cold climate to a warmer one, or vice versa.
The spring coat comeback caps one of the best years for winter coats in recent memory. After a series of unusually warm winters, cold weather drove shoppers to snap up loads of full-priced outerwear last year.
“It was our best coat year ever,” Sherek says.
Too good to be true: Know anybody who got an outrageous deal on eBay on a bejeweled Judith Leiber handbag shaped like a terrier or a watermelon slice? They may have scored some stolen property.
Chicago police Thursday arrested two window dressers at Marshall Field’s State Street store, accusing them of stealing more than $2 million in merchandise and selling some of it through Internet auction sites. Investigators from the Cook County sheriff’s departmentare working with Field’s officials and eBay to locate people who may have purchased the items, which included more than a dozen Leiber bags.
On the move: John Irvin, the man who tried to remake the Spiegel Catalog, has landed a new position as president of catalog and Internet sales at J.C. Penney Co.
Irvin, who was at Spiegel Group from 1996 until mid-December, did preside over an upturn in the catalog business and succeeded in returning the unit to profitability. But his efforts to structure the organization around customers’ lifestyle preferences failed to take hold and was later discarded.
Irvin joins the evolving management team of Allen Questrom, the former Federated Department Stores Inc. chief executive who is trying to turn around Penneys’ faltering business.
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