Words by: Jade Watkins
Being a spend thrift in fashion is no longer frowned upon. Stores, in which many fashionistas would never have dreamt of stepping into, are now the new breeding ground for high-end designer pieces at bargain prices.
A revolutionary trend that began in Europe, when H&M began liasing with high-end designers to create exclusive collections, has arrived on our shores. A plethora of chain stores includingTarget, Portmans and Sportsgirl are jumping on the bandwagon, and fashion consumers who were once unable to afford to spend the hundreds if not thousands of dollars of which designer pieces can yield, and even those who can, are excited with the options on offer.
This innovative concept was spawned from a trend started by the major sporting brands, such as Adidas who partnered up with the likes of Yohji Yamamoto and Stella McCartney, and Puma with Alexander McQueen to design sportswear diffusion lines. Subsequently, came the collaborations between chain stores and designers. H&M stores in Europe caused mass hysteria with their alliances with fashion icons such as Stella McCartney and Karl Lagerfeld whose ranges sold out within hours of hitting the shelves.
These partnerships proved that there was a strong market for affordable designer product pitched at a consumer base relatively untouched by these influential fashion figureheads. With economical price points, women clamoured to be decked out in designer pieces they could only have ever dreamed of or fawned over in the latest glossies.
Back on Australian shores, the trend started to emerge a couple of years ago when designer Tina Kalivas designed a range for French powerhouse Kookai, and then early this year homespun heroes Ksubi (formally Tsubi) created a line called Alba Fan Club for jeans giant Jeans West.
This month has seen four more Aussie designer icons launch ranges for two very iconic Aussie chains. Kit Willow’s limited edition “Dream of a Dress” range landed in Portman stores this month, generating elation from her fans. The range which is only stocked in selected Portmans stores comprises of seven beautiful dresses marketed towards the racing and festive season.
Willow’s signature touches from her original collections can be found in the range including corseted bustiers, draped jersey fabrics and figure hugging tailoring. For Willow it is a chance to inject her style into different spheres. “I recognised a fantastic opportunity to allow a much broader audience to easily access original and innovative designs on a large scale,” she says.
Target has also joined the clique with their new campaign, “Designers for Target”, recruiting Alice McCall, Tina Kalivas and T.L Wood to create capsule ranges for the discount chain store.
The “Designers for Target” campaign came hot of the heels of its US counterpart, who had immense success with their GO International Campaign, a quarterly capsule collaboration with a variety of international designers including Tara Jamon, Paul & Joe, Behnaz Sarafpour, Cynthia Rowley, Luella Bartley and most recently, Isaac Mizrahi.
“GO International is a new bold way for us to deliver the latest styles to our female guests at great value,” said Trish Adams, senior vice president of Target. “By partnering with forward-thinking designers, we provide our guests the latest trends and hottest styles at a fraction of the price.”
Back home, McCall’s range for Target includes printed silk dresses and camisoles with a price bracket of $70 -$130. Based around the bow motif in her first collection, McCall has created a line of beautiful dresses and separates. “We have taken that signature, almost icon piece and translated it into a silk print, “ says McCall, “All of the usual Alice McCall traits are summed up in the garments and refined for Target”.
T.L Wood’s range consists of feminine wearable garments in natural fibres and finishes including cotton, linen and shell buttons. The pair’s collection objective is to create pieces, which can be pulled apart and put back together across the range. “We have tried to make the collection as wearable as possible, and as flattering as possible, so it really will have a broad appeal,” the designers said.
Tina Kalivas describes her collection for Target as “bold, fun, slick and tailored, whilst paying attention to creating pieces, which can cross over to a very wide range of girls and women,” she says. Kalivas’s inspiration stems from the cabaret era, with cocktail dresses for the races or a wedding, and separates including skirts and tops that you can wear back with jeans.
Whilst the collections of all three designers are unique and diverse from one another, they all have very similar motives in terms of their collaborations with the chain.
“I did this for Target because I really do like the idea of reaching a wider market, because maybe you can’t afford all these designer pieces, yet something that’s at a high st price, you don’t bat an eyelid at spending the money,” says McCall whose pieces from her own collection usually fetch around $350 for a blouse or skirt to up to around $600 for a frock.
T.L Wood agrees with McCall. “When Target came to us, one of their mission statements was that good design belongs to everybody and all people deserve good designs at reasonable prices”, they say.
Tina Kalivas also believes great benefits lie in her collaboration. “I decided to do this project with Target because I found that it was a really good way to introduce myself to a new audience,” she says. “It was just the idea of spending all those hours designing and then having the opportunity to have that all around Australia and everybody having access to it.”
Sportsgirl is another chain store that has consistently come to the table with innovative designer alliances, having previously collaborated with Belinda Fairbanks, Flamingo Sands, Sabi, Sisnme, and Jo Nation, which is currently in store. The much-awaited Metalicus for Sportsgirl will be in store next month.
When designers started creating diffusion lines of their own labels, a fashion progression was borne. Gone were the days where we had to pay thousands for a little designer love when the less expensive diffusion lines were introduced. In today’s fashion climate, labels like Marc by Marc Jacobs sell faster than the speed of light, and are just as impressive as the main lines. When Chloe’s casual line, See by Chloe hit the stores in 2001, it sold out within days, and several other designer diffusion lines such as Armani Exchange, Versace Jeans, Paul Smith Pink label, Alexander McQueen’s McQ, and Moschino Cheap and Chic have allowed for more affordable designer ingenuity.
Designer diffusion lines are created to appeal to a wider consumer base. However, there lies an abundance of opportunity to broaden the consumer horizon even more in what many could have seen as the most unlikely breeding ground for this revolution. High end designer collaborations with chain, or what is known in the fashion circles as “high st” stores is showing no sign of slowing down, indicating that there could be greater changes in the fashion climate on a global scale, and what many are seeing as somewhat of a great divide. There is greater recognition in fashion, that there are increasing numbers of consumers who would rather pay less for fashion, which is where these chain stores are cashing in on these trends. With their ability to replicate the hottest looks on the catwalks, designers for these chains stores have their fingers firmly on fashion’s pulse.
On the flipside, the more prominent and revered high-end designers such as Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci, Prada and many others are working around the clock to create more luxurious, more indulgent and more expensive product. Creating product superiority has amassed, to reinvent some somewhat lacklustre labels, which at a time exclusivity had fallen away from cachet in order to sell more. This allowed for an ideology of mass luxury and an era of “fakes” where anybody could obtain a knock-off designer bag on a street corner in Bangkok. Reinvention called for the use of more luxurious materials and intricate designs, and it is now nearly impossible to replicate the accessories on offer from these designer powerhouses, which makes their products superlative to all others.
No matter which side of the fence you sit on, there are more and more options and choices out there. Fans of designer collaborations will be glad to know that there are many more alliances to come, and in many different forms.
In the US, shoe chain Nine West has recruited the likes of Vivien Westwood, Thakoon and Sophia Kokosalaki for their new capsule collections. US chain Macy’s has announced an exclusive collaboration with Oscar de la Renta and apparel marketer Kellwood, to design a women’s sportswear line, and department store Kohl will sell an exclusive Vera Wang line called Very Vera. In the UK Saville Row’s famed bespoke tailor Timothy Everest has created “Autograph”, a line of suits for Marks and Spencer. Topshop is also getting into the groove with not only a collaboration with the one and only supermodel Kate Moss, but also the launch of the New Generation collection, a series of capsule collections by up and coming designers Marios Schwab, Gareth Pugh, Richard Nicoll, and Preen.
In Europe, H&M have announced Victor & Rolf as their new designer force for a collection to hit stores in early November. Typically known as a label whose fervour lies in Haute Couture, this could be one of the most interesting collaborations to date. And the reason why the bespectacled duo chose to work with mega chain H&M? “ If Haute Couture is the most sublime form of fashion, H&M is fashion at its most democratic. We love to play with the opposites. It’s a great opportunity to communicate our vision with a large audience,” says Victor & Rolf.
If chain stores like H&M represent democracy, we may need more of it in fashion’s so-called great divide.
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