Okay. Sorry about that. I was talking about kind of the paradigm shift that you spoke about in your prepared remarks, about kind of the working woman and the shift away from this more professional, maybe suiting, and the fact that, you know, it’s likely that that type of trend persists longer into ’09 and maybe it’s in fact a permanent shift. So, when you look at spring, what have you replaced kind of that suiting business with, if you down trended it and how do you look at that replacement of that business at the Ann Taylor stores division go forward, since it has been such a big part of the business?
Katherine Lawther Krill
I think that definitely we have seen this starting to occur mainly in the second quarter into the third quarter, so it’s definitely – we have planned it down for all of the first half of the year appropriately. And what we’re really investing in as you can imagine, the tops penetration just continues to go up and up and up because that’s really what women are doing today, is buying new tops to perk up their wardrobe. So that’s what we’re focusing on right now. We’re also focusing on more versatile and relevant separates for what she wants today.
I think it’s a different day and definitely she’s not interested in suits. I think that women want their wardrobe to work harder for them. They want it to be able to go to work and on the weekend and that’s what we’re seeing happening. The dress business, however, is still relatively strong at Ann Taylor as it was one of the bright spots of the third quarter and we continue that to be good.
What we’re trying to do is really revitalize the entire assortment at Ann Taylor and better balance the product offering by end use as well as balance the key items with fashion, which has really not been as much of a focus and that’s definitely a focus for Christine and the team. I really feel like it’s a new day at Ann and the entire division is very optimistic about the future and really modernizing this great division.
Adrienne Tennant - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Does it make it more difficult to be on a go-forward basis to keep Loft and I know it’s much more casual, but to keep Loft and the stores very differentiated from one another?
Katherine Lawther Krill
Absolutely. I think they’ll be even more differentiated because Loft’s positioning is really sound. We feel like they look really good right now and its feminine casual is really the handle and I feel like they are very well positioned. The price points are positioned well. There’s a tremendous value inherent in that product and I think the Ann division is where we needed to rejuvenate and revitalize and really re-architect the assortment for profitability. So that’s what we’re doing.
Adrienne Tennant - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Great. Thanks Kay. And Mike, one last question on the SG&A dollars in the fourth quarter, it looks like in the third quarter you were able to – you were looking at positive low single-digit dollar growth earlier and you were really able to impact that, so given the changes you’ve just made should we expect dollar growth in SG&A to be down more than the 4%? Thank you.
Michael J. Nicholson
Actually in terms of dollars year on year, the dollar change year-on-year Q3 I would expect order of magnitude to realize a similar benefit in the fourth quarter of ’08 as compared to ’07.
Adrienne Tennant - Friedman, Billings, Ramsey & Co.
Okay, wonderful. Thank you. Good luck everyone.
Katherine Lawther Krill
Thank you.
Operator
Your next question comes from Liz Dunn with Thomas Weisel Partners.
Liz Dunn - Thomas Weisel Partners |
