Target’s Next Designer Collaboration

First, Target is launching its next designer collaboration on June 6.  It will be available online starting at 12am PT.

They are featuring 3 designers: LoveShackFancy, Cushnie and Lisa Marie Fernandez.

All three brands will only offer dresses.  How perfect for summer!

Each dress averages about $50.

LoveShackFancy offers super feminine prints and silhouettes.  Think Free People’s older, more refined sister.

Cushnie is the posh, sexy boss babe.  I adore this color block slip dress.

Lisa Marie Fernandez is resortwear at its finest.  These are the dresses you wear from the pool to a fancy brunch.

Amazon Launches Common Threads

After trying to enter the luxury sector for a better part of a decade, Amazon finally got their wish.  Common Threads features storefronts for luxury designers like Phillip Lim and Jonathan Cohen.  The catch?  The designers get to dictate their pricing, images, marketing and overall look and feel of these virtual storefronts.  The benefit to designers?  Amazon’s robust supply chain and data capture.

Have we entered a new realm of luxury retail?

The Jerry Maguire Manifesto of the Fashion World

Heavy-hitting designers like Dries Van Noten and Tory Burch PLUS governing fashion bodies like the CFDA and British Fashion Council have sent a plea to the fashion world: revamp the fashion calendar.

These manifestos call for a slow down in production.  Rather than 6 collections per year, the revamp calls for just two: spring/summer and fall/winter.  Moreover, they want to adjust the release dates to actually fall within season.  So instead of seeing a winter coat on sale before you even need to wear it, this shift, if implemented, would put fashion back on a realistic time table.

What does it mean for you as a consumer?

Winter clothes being released in winter.  Summer clothes in summer.  Say goodbye to Black Friday, Cyber Monday and any other major shopping discount “holiday”.  Why?

Inventory will no longer sit in stores for months before it becomes relevant.  When it’s released in real-time, the cycle for discounts shortens.

An offshoot effect of this is luxury pricing.  Ever wonder why some brands get away with pricing a cotton hoodie at $900?  Technically, they don’t.  The 1% buys full price.  But the rest of us wait for it to go on sale (in say, the after Christmas markdowns) and buy it at 40-60% off.  That’s the price the designers expect to collect.

With a shift in the fashion calendar, luxury brands may be forced to reconsider their pricing models.