At Abercrombie & Fitch, denim and fleece have been trending well. "It looks like the malls are promotional again this year; however, each of our brands will maintain a full-price posture throughout the holiday," said Tom Lennox, vice president of communications.

At Gap Inc., "We expect it to be a challenging season for Gap and all our brands," said a spokesman. "We opened earlier hours trying to get people in off the bat and get them buying."

Old Navy door-busters included MP3 players given to the first customers in the store between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m. Gap also offered 30 percent discounts to early-bird shoppers.

At Gap, the merchandise focused on "color and optimism, with a stronger point of view." The focal point was striped sweaters and scarves for men, women and kids. Old Navy's hot seller was attractively priced cashmere sweaters.

Juicy Couture reported its 36 directly operated U.S. stores were tracking 10 percent comp gains over last year's Black Friday, said Beth Cohn, vice president of retail. Shoppers waited in line outside of the Rodeo Drive store, which opened at 10 a.m., though the highest-grossing stores on Black Friday were in Scottsdale (Fashion Square) and Houston Galleria, followed by Rodeo Drive. The most popular items included velour tracksuits, pants, T-shirts, boxed jewelry sets, patent leather handbags and ballet flats. "We have some items marked down but the full-price merchandise is driving sales," she said.

Traffic was not overwhelming at American Rag. Still, ceo Mark Werts was pleasantly surprised that sales were slightly above last year's Black Friday totals. "That hasn't been the trend for the year. That for us portends a reasonable fourth quarter," said Werts. "The hype of [Black Friday] is bigger than the reality. It sells newspapers."

"It was kind of slow, I was disappointed," admitted Lori Parkerson, owner of the Redeem specialty shop on 14th Street N.W. in Washington. The funky shop carries brands such as Bern 'n' Violet and Gentle Fawn.

EXCLUDING TOURISTS, LUXURY CLIENTELE AVOID CROWDS

Saks Fifth Avenue chairman and ceo Steve Sadove reported a "solid weekend in terms of the numbers" and singled out the Fifth Avenue flagship and Off-5th outlets as exceptional. "There were European tourists walking around with suitcases," to load up on purchases, Sadove said. Among the best-selling categories were handbags, cold-weather accessories, men's wear "across the board" and the "modern" side of bridge such as Akris Punto, Theory, Tahari and Tory Burch.