Specialty retailers' sales show teens still shopping

— -- A handful of teen-targeted retailers are the only bright spots in retail other than the discounters.

Midwest-based Buckle, however, watched sales soar by 17.4%, the most of any chain reporting. Buckle sells low to midprice clothing lines, including Lucky Brand and Quiksilver.

Retail stock analyst Jennifer Black notes "cheap is the new cool." That's helped Aéropostale, which offers the same type of apparel found at American Eagle and Abercrombie & Fitch but at lower prices.

On top of that, "cool" is simply cool. "The peer pressure when you're in high school is just unbelievable," says Black. Young people, unlike their parents, will seldom stoop to shopping their closets.

Sometimes they simply can't, says Mary Brett Whitfield, senior vice president at the management consulting and research firm Retail Forward.

"Teens are still growing and might actually need new clothes," says Whitfield.

For Hot Topic, merchandise tied to the hugely popular Twilight movie and book franchise has lured more mainstream teens into the once mostly gothic stores.