Evan Clark ties up the disastrous year for the fashion industry with the observation that the New Frugality caused by the financial crisis seems "destined to reshape the industry" and means more "lean
times and fewer dollars in the till."
"We're going to go back to a 1950-, 1960-type mentality, where you save a percentage of your take-home pay to start and you live within your means
beyond that," Paul Nolte, director of investments at Hinsdale Associates, tells Clark.
Bankruptcies and consolidation are inevitable, people are scared, and cash is king again. "I started in
retailing at the end of the Great Depression, in 1938, and retailers were falling by the wayside one after another," says Ira Neimark, former Bergdorf Goodman chairman. "The small ones dropped out,
but the ones who had the financial backing were able to continue."
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