Dive Brief:

• Pacsun announced on Friday that it is expanding its retail footprint with the opening of dedicated Pacsun Kids stores, according to a company press release.
• The first Pacsun Kids store, which is directly connected to the Pacsun adult store and has 1,435 square feet of retail space, opened on Thursday at Mall of America. The company plans to open an additional five locations in 2022.
• Pacsun Kids is designed to be a genderless brand that caters to ages 4 to 14.

Dive Insight:

Pacsun is expanding its retail footprint by focusing on its new gender-neutral kids category.

The apparel retailer launched the brand in June with the new line available on the company's website, through its wholesale partner, Nordstrom, and at pop-ups. The retailer quickly decided to move beyond only pop-ups to permanent locations.

"At Pacsun, we want our consumers to be free to express themselves and choose what they want to wear without boundaries, which was the driving factor behind introducing our Pacsun Kids label, completely without gender," Pacsun President Brie Olson said in a statement.

The retail locations will feature apparel from its own brand, along with partnered brands as part of its holiday campaign including Land Rover, Fear of God Essentials, Adidas, Santa Cruz, Vans, Champion and others.

This year a number of large retailers have moved further into kids clothing. Walmart introduced Free Assembly Kids, an extension of its Free Assembly private label, following its partnership with tween brand Justice. J.C. Penney over the summer launched a new private label, Thereabouts, an inclusive children's apparel line in size range 2T to 22. Additionally, Janie and Jack, which typically focuses on clothing for babies and small children, had a soft launch of tween apparel featuring genderless clothing.

The teen apparel market, in particular, is in the midst of a shift, with mainstay mall brands like Express, Gap and Abercrombie & Fitch losing favor with the group over the past decade. Yet, Pacsun has emerged as one of the most popular brands for teens, this year landing in the third spot of favorite apparel brands for the demographic in a fall 2021 report by Piper Sandler.

Over this summer, Pacsun also delved into resale — an apparel category that is gaining strength, especially among young customers, and is projected to reach $77 billion in sales over the next five years.