Gap has announced that they will be closing its Forth & Towne division after an 18-month trial run that included stores in cities across the U.S. The line offered casual clothes for the middle-aged woman. The clothes are cute, not dramatically different from Banana Republic but with a little more of a Anthropologie-style winsomeness and the stores were a bit more restrained in style than the bouncy casual style at the Gap.

Given that the baby boomer, mature woman market is only growing why didn't Forth & Towne fly? Were the clothes not right? Was the concept off or is it something else? Was it that a shop for "mature shoppers" is vaguely insulting to the modern woman who doesn't like to think of her shopping choices are being age-specific? After all, many of the women I know in their 30s and 40s are still shopping at Forever 21. It's a shame that Gap didn't give the concept more of a try though, I think in time it may have caught on.