Aeropostale Running Out of Ways to Write "Aeropostale" on T-shirts

In what has been declared a crisis in the suburban-mall-fashion world, clothing manufacturer Aeropostale announced Monday that it is running out of ways to sell the same T-shirt to unsuspecting adolescents.  "We've tried stitched horizontal, stitched vertical, printed, printed with numbers, cursive... we're about all out of ideas," said Beverly House, Senior Vice President of Design for Aeropostale.  "Of course, our big breakthrough was putting the number 87 on our shirts.  That began to wear off so we began to branch out and take a piece of the surf t-shirt market.  Now that that market is over saturated we've been putting design ideas through focus groups with varying results.  Some experimental designs that have done well in the focus groups have been shirts with the number 89 on them and also one's that just say 'Aero' instead of Aeropostale."  The suburban-mall clothing industry is a closely competitive business world where each firm struggles to differentiate themselves from other producers of virtually identical goods.  It is the general consensus among insiders that all of the good logos and themes have been taken, i.e. the moose, seagull, eagle, or varying takes on camels.  The most effective way to stand out is moving more towards the numbers side of the business.  "We've all played the numbers game," said a high level designer for Abercrombie and Fitch who commented on a condition of anonymity, "and if you've been in this game for very long, you know you can't just keep putting the number 87 on every shirt.  See, sometimes I like to put an 85, or a 90, or hell, even a 1992 on a shirt.  In 2002 I revolutionized the industry by assigning dates to contests that never happened and then putting them on shirts: "Surf Fest 1990", "Downhill Champions 1983", etc. and that's what you've got to do, think outside the number box."  It has been rumored in the fashion blogosphere that Abercrombie will begin putting irrational numbers on their shirts beginning summer 2012.  Other clothing stores have contracted consultants to help in their design programs.  American Eagle has hired Ricky McDaniels, the original designer of the truckstop wolf t-shirt as an outside consultant.  A.E. hopes to launch it's new clothing line under Mr. McDaniels within the year which will supposedly incorporate Indians with the American Eagle logo as well as eagles howling at the moon.