Forth & Towne, The Gap Inc.’s women’s clothing retailer for Boomers, will fold later this year. Best comment we’ve seen actually came a year ago when the store launched. “Forth & Towne”, wrote Slate, “was born of a statistic.” Gap’s premise: Boomer women have more money to spend than younger women, and they’re underserved by other retailers. Sure, but it’s a mistake to market to Boomers as a single market with homogenous characteristics. It’s a huge, diverse demographic segment with differing needs across age, income and lifestyle. As clothing shoppers, Boomer women are better served by the diverse offerings of department stores, which are seeing resurgent growth. Specialty catalog and online retailers also have a better shot, although even Chico’s FAS has seen growth rates stall, and its stock was the worst one-year performer among 1,000 companies in the Wall Street Journal’s 2006 shareholder scoreboard–down 53 percent for the year.

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