If exposed pipes, white walls and wooden crates are the height of store design and blue jeans and T-shirts the garb of national choice, then Express is a throwback to another age — in fact, to another century.
Express stores, a division of Limited Inc., are a bit of Versailles tucked into 7,500 square feet of the local mall, and the young women’s chic career and casual clothing they sell evokes Madison Avenue rather than Main Street.
But while its merchandising and marketing seem out of step, so is its success. Last year Express, with more than 600 stores, was at the top of the retail industry in profits, sales growth and productivity.
Last year, in the depths of the recession, Express’ sales hit the billion- dollar benchmark for the first time. So, like any proud parent, the normally reticent Limited is suddenly willing to engage in a bit of uncharacteristic preening.
The Limited boasts that by most measures, Express as a stand-alone business would best even Gap stores, that darling of Wall Street and the media. Express’ own executives are somewhat more modest.
“It’s not that we get everything right, that we don’t make mistakes,” said Michael A. Weiss, Express’ president and the impresario behind its growth since 1980. “It’s that we’re good at seeing what’s working and then making it work for us.”
Banana Republic, a division of Gap Inc., won the blue ribbon last year for the most sales in each square foot of space — $576 compared with Express’ $316, according to Goldman, Sachs & Co.
But Express is a champion at generating operating profits and growth, and in doing so has become a sort of yardstick against which to measure the performance of Gap stores.
“As the Gap continues to expand the fashion component of its women’s business, they’re going to become increasingly competitive,” said Richard N. Baum, a retail analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co.
He estimates that Express’ sales will grow 18 percent a year, more than twice the industry average, through 1995, and he predicts similar increases in operating profits.
Express is a tough challenger, as its sister store, the Limited, has discovered. While Limited stores have struggled to reposition themselves, like the rival Ann Taylor chain, as a source of affordable, well-made career clothing, analysts say Express has lured away many of its big sister’s customers.
Even Ann Taylor considers Express to be a bigger competitor than the Limited. In a recent interview at the Express store in the Menlo Park Mall in Edison, N.J., Weiss stopped abruptly at the big glass window looking out on the mall and playfully wagged his finger at a group gathered outside.
“Have you no shame?” he yelled at Sally Frame Kasaks, who used to head the Limited’s Abercrombie & Fitch division and who recently became chairman and chief executive of Ann Taylor. “Is nothing sacred?”
Kasaks and her executives were comparison-shopping for new ideas.
A customer, Tammy Winthrop, poked through a rack of floral print silk walking shorts and matching tops. “Shopping here is really like shopping,” she said. “You can look for fashion instead of just buying jeans and a T- shirt.”
Winthrop, 25, said she also shopped at Gap, but “that’s for weekends and the beach,” she said. “This stuff is good enough for the office.”
