Word: weaverization
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...anyone understands the benefits of action--and the price of inaction--it's Eric Weaver. A sergeant in the Rochester, N.Y., police department, Weaver, 40, moves in circles that are particularly intolerant of weakness. He's a tough cop. He participated in body-building shows, volunteered for SWAT team duty and was a role model for the other officers. That's why it came as a surprise to his wife and three daughters when he finally revealed that he could barely recall a day when he hadn't contemplated suicide. "I'd exhibit confidence, arrogance and self-esteem," he says...
Lost in Translation revels in contradictions. It's a comedy about melancholy, a romance without consummation, a travelogue that rarely hits the road. Sofia Coppola has a witty touch with dialogue that sounds improvised yet reveals, glancingly, her characters' dislocation. She's a real mood weaver, with a gift for goosing placid actors (like Johansson, who looks eerily like the young James Spader) and mining a comic's deadpan depths. Watch Murray's eyes in the climactic scene in the hotel lobby: while hardly moving, they express the collapsing of all hopes, the return to a sleepwalking status...
...Weaver has not avoided all the pitfalls. In 2001 the company misjudged demand, and weaker-than-expected sales hurt earnings, which fell to a disappointing $8.9 million in the third quarter of 2001. Weaver chalked it up to the growing pains of a rapidly expanding chain. "Suddenly I realized that all the things I was able to do with 150 stores, I couldn't do at 650," he says...
Fortunately, PacSun was broadening its customer base at about the same time. Before, its clothes had a punkish surf-skate attitude that appealed mainly to teenage boys--an image the company reinforced by, among other marketing moves, sponsoring the X Games. But in 2001 Weaver took some tentative steps into the girls' market. Customer response was strong, helping pull the chain out of its mild slump. Weaver today attributes much of the past year's success to the purchasing instincts of girls, who, unlike boys, buy not just a single item of clothing but an outfit with a belt...
PacSun isn't finished with expansion. Weaver says the company is looking at possible acquisitions, although he plans to stay squarely in the teen market. For as fickle as teenagers can be, they can also be charmingly oblivious to events that suppress the purchasing appetites of other consumers. Teens "are CNN-proof," he says. "Sept. 11 and a day or two after were clearly brutal, but within four or five days, business came back." For teens, the sun rarely sets. --With reporting by Paige Bowers/Atlanta, Esther Chapman/Omaha, Harlene Ellin/Chicago and Adam Pitluk/Dallas