Apparel

Strong e-commerce growth and omnichannel contributed to a healthy holiday shopping sales season at Belk.

The nation’s largest family owned and operated fashion department store company reported a 5.2% increase in sales for the nine-week period ending Jan. 3. Same store sales for the same period increased by 4.8%.

New York -- The National Retail Federation announced that The Container Store chairman and CEO Kip Tindell has been elected chairman of the NRF board of directors and chairman of its executive committee, succeeding Stephen I. Sadove, retired chairman and CEO of Saks, Inc.  

Tindell was elected at the Board of Directors meeting held Sunday during NRF’s 104th Annual Convention and EXPO, Retail’s BIG Show.

New York -- Embattled apparel retailer Body Central has gone out of business and closed its entire remaining store base, effective Sunday evening, according to attorney for the company Gardner Davis.

Based in Jacksonville, Florida, the 265-store Body Central Corp. had said earlier this week that it was "experiencing significant liquidity challenges" and was working with advisers to evaluate its options. With the closure announcement, about 2,500 employees lost their jobs.

New York -- Former Coach Inc. chief Lew Frankfort has joined Sycamore Partners as an Executive in Residence, which will allow the private equity firm to tap into Frankfort’s retail knowledge, managerial expertise and network of industry relationships. Sycamore’s portfolio of retail investments includes Aeropostale, Coldwater Creek, Hot Topic, Jones New York, Nine West Holdings, Stuart Weitzman and Talbots.

Columbus, Ohio -- Express is lifting its fourth-quarter and full-year profit forecasts, citing a better-than-expected performance at the end of December and beginning of January.

CEO Michael Weiss said that Express Inc. experienced slowing sales during the first three weeks of December, but that its performance has bounced back since.
 
Fourth-quarter same-store sales are now predicted to fall 3%-4%; Express previously forecast a mid to high single-digit decline in the figure.
 

New York -- Tiffany's holiday sales dipped 1% and the luxury jewelry retailer cut its full-year profit outlook. CEO Michael Kowalski said that sales in the Americas fell slightly during November and December, while sales in Japan remained soft. Sales in the Asia-Pacific region and in Europe climbed.

San Mateo, Calif. -- NetSuite Inc. announced that two fashion and apparel retailers — Journelle, a seller of high-end lingerie and loungewear, and Alton Lane, a maker of men’s custom-tailored clothing — have deployed NetSuite to run their core retail business processes from order management, inventory management, financials, supplier purchasing and customer relationship management (CRM) to marketing — all from within one unified cloud-based business management platform.

New York -- Family-owned luxury apparel retailer Mitchells Family of Stores has partnered with ThoughtWorks Retail to reenergize the luxury shopping experience through its e-commerce and brick-and-mortar channels. The newly launched, customized responsive-design website, developed by ThoughtWorks, allows the Mitchells loyal customer base to access personal shopping profiles via M World, a platform where customers can see their own virtual closets of wardrobe purchases made both in the physical store or on the e-commerce site.

Atlanta -- 400-store French apparel retailer Kiabi has selected Predictix to implement a unified suite of merchandising and supply chain optimization solutions.

Predictix, which harnesses predictive and prescriptive analytics, and the unlimited computing power of the cloud to bring insights into consumer demand, will allow Kiabi to discover a deeper, richer understanding of what drives consumer demand and reach a new level of customer intimacy.

After posting stronger than expected holiday sales, Burlington Stores Inc. has named a new chief financial officer.

Marc Katz, formerly the company’s EVP of merchandise support and information technology, is replacing Todd Weyhrich, who retired this month.