Aéropostale (clothing)


Aéropostale, Inc., also called AERO, is an American shopping mall–based retailer of casual apparel and accessories, principally targeting young adults through its Aéropostale stores. Aéropostale maintains control over its proprietary brands by designing, sourcing, marketing, and selling all of its own merchandise. The company operates Aéropostale stores in the United States and the e-commerce site aeropostale.com. Aéropostale's licensees operate Aéropostale and P.S. from Aéropostale locations in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, and Latin America.
The first Aéropostale stores were opened in 1987 by R H Macy & Co. in Thousand Oaks, California, and in Short Hills, New Jersey.

Pronunciation

Many different pronunciations of the brand name have developed in the United States: arrow-PAUSE-tall, arrow-PUS-tall-ee, YOR-oh-POHS-tal-AY, etc., but according to a video posted by the company on YouTube, the English pronunciation is a simplified version of the French word, which means "French airmail service." In French, it's /a e ʁɔ pɔs ˈtal/. In English, it's /ˌɛər oʊ poʊ ˈstɒl/ or, in spelling pronunciation, "arrow-post-ALL."

Subsidiaries

The now-defunct P.S. from Aéropostale began in 2009, and originally only offered apparel at value prices to the 7–12 age market. In winter of 2011, P.S. added apparel for three-, four-, five- and six-year-olds to their collections, being introduced with the Holiday clothings. Beginning in November 2013, the Bethany Mota collection was added to Aéropostale stores, featuring clothing and accessories designed by American video blogger Bethany Mota. Also beginning in the fall of 2013, the Live Love Dream collection was added to Aéropostale stores. Live Love Dream features lounge and activewear geared to girls. The company also offered a secondary brand called Jimmy'Z that focused on surf and skater clothing. The 14 stores were branded as more upscale with higher price points than its parent chain. The company closed all Jimmy'Z in fiscal 2009.
In October 2014, the company launched their latest collection, United XXVI, which features clothing with an edgier look. The company works with video bloggers Nash Grier, Hayes Grier, and Cameron Dallas to create these looks based on the type of clothing the boys enjoy.
Aéropostale has currently following brands for girls:
And for boys:
Aéropostale mainly competes with other outfitters, Abercrombie & Fitch and its subsidiary retailer Hollister Co., and American Eagle Outfitters as well as a few smaller brands. Aéropostale's younger brand, P.S. from Aéropostale, competes with brands such as A&F's younger subsidiary Abercrombie Kids and, formerly, American Eagle's 77kids.

Promotions

In 2007, the company began doing promotions with successful figures to increase brand awareness. The first promotion was selling the Fall Out Boy album Infinity on High with a store-exclusive T-shirt. Other offers include a free beach towel with every $50 purchase and a free Christmas bear with a purchase of over $100, each promotion in its respective season. These Christmas bears are also donated by Aéropostale stores to local charities in their respective communities. In 2008, Aéropostale, along with not-for-profit youth organization Do Something, launched "Teens for Jeans", a campaign to raise awareness of teen homelessness. Stores would collect lightly used jeans and donate them to local charities. In return, donators received a 20% or 25% discount on a new pair of Aéropostale jeans. In 2008, the campaign raised over 125,000 pairs of jeans. In their fifth year they collected over a million pairs in 2012. In 2008 and 2009, Aéropostale donated 10,000 pairs of new jeans to the campaign.
In 2010, after the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti, for every pair of jeans that was donated by customers, Aéropostale sent a brand new pair to Haiti. In 2015, the company teamed up with British pop band The Vamps to promote awareness. The school with the most jeans collected received a private concert from the band. There were over 82,000 participants and the company raised 722,072 pairs of jeans in total. Also they promoted the show Greek Season 1 DVD with a free T-shirt with a $50 purchase. In the same year, Aéropostale organized Real Teen contest to discover new talent among teenagers. The top 8 winners of the contest received $5,000 personal college scholarship. In April 2011, Aéropostale partnered with Black Eyed Peas to sell exclusive T-shirts and CDs. Proceeds from these items benefit the Peapod Foundation, a charity which "helps children worldwide through music." Additionally, Aéropostale has pledged $100,000 to the organization.

Legal issues

After thirteen consecutive quarters of losses, the company was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange on April 22, 2016, and began trading under the symbol AROP as an over-the-counter stock.
Aéropostale filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on May 4, 2016, with assets of $354 million. The company closed 113 of its 739 U.S. stores and all 41 in Canada, the majority of which were unprofitable and responsible for the company's losses. USA Today made a list of all of the US stores closing as part of its bankruptcy.
The company exited bankruptcy in September 2016, after a $243 million bid from a consortium of licensing firm Authentic Brands Group, mall operators Simon Property Group and General Growth Properties, and capital-investment firms Gordon Brothers and Hilco Merchant Resources. By January 2017 Aéropostale had reopened over 500 stores under its new management. Aéropostale products returned to Canada in 2019, through boutiques in Bluenotes stores and a dedicated online shop.