Aéropostale (clothing)

Subsidiaries

To leverage the strength of the Aéropostale teen brand, the company has expanded its namesake chain to a new chain called "P.S. from Aéropostale", geared at children. 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 (LLD) 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:

Competition

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 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% (2008) or 25% (2009) 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.

Aéropostale not only helps out their customers, they also help their employees through a program called Aero Cares. Aero Cares is another not-for-profit organization and is funded voluntarily by the Aéropostale employees. The purpose of the organization is to help any employee during times of extreme financial hardship or need resulting from personal tragedy.

Awards and honors

The company was named by Fortune magazine as one of the top 100 companies to work for in 2013.

Legal issues

NYSE Delisting

On 22 April 2016, the stock was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange, and began trading under the symbol AROP as an over-the-counter stock starting on April 22, 2016.

In 17 March Aeropostale announced its looking for strategic alternative either to sell it off or restructure.

Bankruptcy preparation

As of May 2, 2016, the company was preparing for a bankruptcy filing - with more than 100 of its 800 stores to be closed.

On May 4, 2016, the company filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy. As part of the reorganization, the company will close 113 U.S. stores and all 41 Canadian stores. In August 2016, mall operators General Growth Properties and Simon Property Group, along with Authentic Brands Group, Hilco Merchant Resources and Gordon Brothers Retail Partners, put in a bid for all of Aeropostale’s assets consisting of at least 229 stores. The bid in total is $243 million. The joint venture will seek to assume all liabilities as well. The bid will help the REITs save their existing leases with the company. General Growth Properties and Simon Property Group have a total of 234 leases with Aeropostale. As of the date of bankruptcy filing, Aeropostale had a total of 739 stores in operation in the United States and Puerto Rico – and further 41 stores in Canada. The company had 25 P.S. from Aeropostale stores in 12 states.