Thanks to No nonsense's most recent product introduction, consumers can purchase hosiery and sleepwear during the same visit to a drug store, grocery store or mass retailer. The foray into loungewear is not a first for parent company Kayser-Roth, but a first for its No nonsense brand. (The company's Hue brand sells a wide variety of sleepwear products in the department store channel).

"It's a new category for us and a new product category for many of our retailers," said Trish Martin, senior director of marketing for No nonsense. "We've had tremendous response so far. It makes shopping more convenient for our consumer. She can easily buy all the things she needs in one place without having to make an extra trip to a mall department store."

The product comes in a smaller, space-efficient package that displays together with the rest of No nonsense's product line. The spring 2006 collection comes in two separate styles, each featuring a capri bottom and a solid matching T-shirt. The sets are sold for $14.99 each.

The line is currently only available for women, but the company is exploring the possibility of expanding the line into men's and girls' products in the future. Kayser-Roth is also entertaining the idea of creating seasonal collections as well, due to research that indicates that women buy sleepwear for themselves or as gifts.

Designers put their best legs forward during Olympus Fashion Week in New York. Many models wore cropped leggings, opaque tights or bright printed legwear on the runway, rather than sporting the bare-legged look that's been en vogue for the past several seasons. Big-name designers, including Zac Posen, Anna Sui, Kenneth Cole, Marc Jacobs and Carolina Herrera, all featured some sort of legwear in their collections. The return of hosiery to the runway has many in the industry thinking that sales might pick up some pace.

"We're happy that they are addressing legwear again on the runways," said Mimi Merkin, director of design for legwear at Kayser-Roth, the parent company to the Hue and No nonsense brands. "We're hoping that this will translate down into the mainstream, and that people will pay attention and use hosiery as part of their everyday fashion."

According to the latest NPD Group data, overall sales of legwear, including socks, hosiery and tights, fell 5.3% for the year ended Aug. 31, 2005. However, the industry sees hope in the latest trends to hit the runway.

"We're seeing a lot of darker and muted colors, opaque tights in lapis blue, eggplant, tea green, purples, pinks, heather grey, chocolate brown and, of course, black," Merkin said. "And cropped tights and leggings are huge as well."

Mainstream brands and department stores are starting to pick up on this trend as well. Hue's fall 2006 collection includes both a capri and ankle-length cropped legging. Spanx, which sells in specialty department stores, sells low-rise cropped sheer hosiery in its collection. Dillard's sells 19 different varieties of its Copper Key leggings in its girls' and juniors' departments. JCPenney sells ankle-length cropped Mixit leggings for $22 per pair in its women's department.

Function is also of crucial importance for legwear for fall. According to Merkin, newness for hosiery this season comes not through new prints or textures, but from new fabrication. In the Hue brand, the company is focusing on using finer yarns, such as cotton modele, microfiber, bamboo and silk, to elevate the quality of the product. Sweater yarns for leggings will also be important.

Technology and comfort will continue to be crucial elements for ho-siery in the mass channel. No Nonsense's Smart Support hosiery uses Lycra Leg Care, and its Silky Support label focuses on customer comfort by providing extra-soft fabrication. L'Eggs, which is owned by Hanes, sells Sheer Vitality anti-cellulite hosiery that releases microcapsules, which help lessen the appearance of cellulite. The company reports that 64% of users have reported a reduction of the appearance of cellulite with the product.

If there's a craving for pickle juice by high school athletes in the school cafeterias across Wisconsin, we will now know why.

The statewide publication of the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association, which governs high school sports, recently devoted a quarter-page column by sports dietitian Jane Foos to the merits of preventing muscle cramps by drinking pickle juice.

But it's no magic potion, she wrote. "While giving a sidelined player a shot of pickle juice may or may not relieve a muscle cramp, that player is still out of competition."

As an assistant principal in Deming, Wash., Jeff Pietila was confronted by a group of 20 outraged 7th-grade boys one day. Why, they demanded, if the girls had vending machines in their restrooms couldn't they have the same in theirs?

Presumably the boys thought the girls had access to candy, gum or soda pop. Little did they understand that the girls' machines were actually for feminine hygiene supplies.

It's Nostalgic for Some

Sylvia Lowe, the secretary to Superintendent William Dean in Frederick County, Va., was standing in the ordering line in a Subway sandwich shop when she overheard two high school students discussing what they planned to wear to school on "Back to the '80s Day."

The conversation jolted Lowe to the realization of her advancing years, though she's only in her 50s. "What is it about the '80s that they deserve their own day? I'm still wearing clothes from the '80s!" she exclaimed.

Time Better Spent

Whenever the first sign of snow is in the air, Rebecca Perry always can count on a flurry of beckoning requests to close the schools from students via e-mail.

Perry, superintendent in Alexandria, Va., finds many of the comments amusing, and occasionally she opts to respond as she did after receiving this e-mail message: "Suggestion: CLOSE SCHOOL FRIDAY, we are sick of being the only school open on snow days, st stephens is allready off and i'm not surprized if more are, please dear god just close school."

Perry's reply: "I am not God, you are going to school, and your spelling seems to indicate that you need to stay a little bit longer."

(Source: The Washington Post)

A Costly Game of Hooky

Parental collusion on student absenteeism has become such a festering sore in Great Britain that the government recently proposed legislation granting school principals the right to levy fines.

Parents of chronically missing students could be subject to fines of up to 2,500 pounds, or $3,900 at the current exchange rate.

The national government estimates that 50,000 students skip school each day without parental permission.

A Unique Reply

When: Parent-teacher conference day, a month or so into the school year.

Where: Dolphin Senior Public School in Mississauga, Ontario

The Players: A veteran science teacher and two parents with their son

Action: The teacher, fatigued after a long day of meetings throughout the afternoon and evening, welcomes the parents of a particularly lazy student into his classroom. "Why is my son doing so poorly?" one parent demands at the outset.

"It's the pissing mieces of work!" the teacher answers in true spoonerism style.

The parents and their son, stunned by what they've heard, don't bat an eye, pause briefly and continue on with their interview as if the faux pas never was uttered.

But even Angelenos are coming to grips with this reality: about 40 percent of American women wear a size 14 or larger. So-called plus-size clothing has become a $32 billion industry, and it is growing faster than any other market segment.

Inspired by such full-figured celebs as Kirstie Alley and Tyra Banks, plus-sized women are demanding more fashion-forward merchandise and designers and retailers are beginning to respond. And it's not just Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc. that are emphasizing larger sizes. Trendy brands such as Apple Bottoms and Kellwood Inc.'s Baby Phat recently launched plus-size lines. City of Industry-based Hot Topic Inc., which has seen sales of its primary brand slide, has posted better results with Torrid, its line of stores for curvy women.

"It's a real recognition on the part of the fashion industry that there's a whole segment of the market that's ignored," said retail consultant Richard Giss, a partner at Deloitte & Touche LLP, "and the success of the early entrants to the marketplace have caused emulation."

He attributes the growth of fashionable plus-size sales in part to the nation's increasing waistline, the number of young women shopping for larger sizes, and the success of professional attire in plus sizes.

The trend is affecting nearly every segment of the industry, even morn-and-pop outfits.

Yul Kwon joined his parents in 2002 in their business Gemix Inc., which manufactures plus-sized clothing for women. He'd just finished his master's degree in finance. but didn't know much about fashion. His parents, Onoh In and Young Kwon, started Gemix in 1987. When Yul joined the company, which is downtown, he hung out after the company's weekly sample sales to get a feel for his clientele. He also asked them to fill out surveys. He learned that the market was shifting.

Customers didn't want regular clothes that were simply bigger. They wanted clothes that were cut and styled differently, in a way to fit their curves.

"It was pretty clear they were tired of the style of clothes that didn't fit," he said. "With the fight fit, shaped to the curve, you'd look younger, slimmer; it makes a lot of difference."

Kwon's customers were also looking for more fashionable duds. He decided to launch Missphit, a new label for Gemix, using higher-quality fabric, hipper styles and more attention to detail. He set the average wholesale price at about $20, roughly double that of the company's Gemini house brand.

Shortly after last summer's launch, Missphit was picked up by Dillard's Inc. department stores, which are concentrated in the Sunbelt and central U.S.

The big box chain's orders have increased steadily from an initial trial order. And Gemix was flooded with calls from customers who couldn't make it to a Dillard's store. The problem has been temporarily fixed by selling Missphit on Dillards.com. But he expects demand to keep growing.

The $6 million company has had to increase output 40 percent to keep up with orders. Gemix made 6,000 garments per month last year, but is planning to grow that to 10,000 units per month this year. The downtown factory is doing so well that Kwon's parents expect to retire by year-end and leave their 31-year-old son at the helm.

"I'd like to say I have someone like my mother or wife who is a plus-size woman and I noticed their frustration," Kwon said. "But this is something I've been immersed in, and I saw this market wasn't served."

Torrid growth

Another factor in the growth of the fashion-forward plus-size market is the increasing number of young women with more generous proportions.

"We used to make basic items aimed at women in their late 30s to 50s," Kwon said. "However, as the years passed, we have seen a strong demand for younger, trendier looks. Now it has gotten to the point where customers are kicking and screaming at us to make fashion-forward designs."

In 2001, Hot Topic, the edgy chain targeted directly to teens, noticed a dramatic growth in requests from women for larger sizes. The company tested a few items on the company Web site and was bowled over by the response. Hot Topic added a permanent plus-size section to the Web site, but more research revealed it wasn't enough. The customers wanted a separate store that offered the same sort of fashionable merchandise that their slimmer friends might be wearing.

Hot Topic opened its first Torrid store in Brea in April 2001. Torrid serves young women sized 12 to 26. The chain now has 131 stores and expects to open 20 this year. Torrid's store merchandise is 50 percent house brand and 50 percent fashion brands like Paris Blues, Dickies and l.e.i.

Delia Douglas, Torrid's marketing manager, said the company estimates that the chain could eventually grow to the size of Hot Topic, currently about 700 stores. The sub-brand has been a bright spot for Hot Topic, which has been underperforming since last summer, according to Giss, the Deloitte consultant.