Fashion retailer True Religion Apparel Inc. has completed its Chapter 11 financial restructuring process that began in April 2020. The company is just one of several in the apparel branding/retail space that has struggled during the coronavirus pandemic, as discussed in Panjiva's research of Aug. 17. Panjiva's data shows that True Religion has restarted its operations, albeit on a greatly reduced level, with U.S. seaborne imports linked to the firm resuming with 13 20-foot equivalent units of imports linked to the firm since the start of August.
True Religion's focus on high-end denim jeans may have been a challenge during the pandemic, anyway. Panjiva's data shows that U.S. seaborne imports of denim clothes dropped by 16.5% in the third quarter compared to a year earlier, with shipments in September alone down by 15.1%. Clothing made of the fabric clearly also underperformed activewear, as outlined in Panjiva's third-quarter apparel scorecard, though Levi Strauss & Co. has indicated that progress has been "substantially better than we expected" despite a third-quarter drop in revenue of 27% year over year.
There are signs of life elsewhere in denim imports, however. Shipments linked to Ascena Retail Group Inc. have improved by 22.2% in September as the firm works through its own financial restructuring. H & M Hennes & Mauritz AB (publ) has seen steady growth in its denim imports throughout the year, excepting August, and expanded shipments by 23.1%. Shipments linked to luxury brand owner PVH Corp., meanwhile, expanded for the first time in September since January, with a 109.4% year-over-year increase.
Christopher Rogers is a senior researcher at Panjiva, which is a business line of S&P Global Market Intelligence, a division of S&P Global Inc. This content does not constitute investment advice, and the views and opinions expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Links are current at the time of publication. S&P Global Market Intelligence is not responsible if those links are unavailable later.