Liz Claiborne's deal with J.C. Penney changes your Macy's trip
By Mark Albright, Times Staff Writer
In Print: Tuesday, October 13, 2009
JCPenney starting next fall, but that's only part of the story.
As a result, this Christmas will be the last season that one of the most popular mainstream women's brands of the past 20 years will be stocked at department stores like Macy's, Dillard's and Belk.
"Claiborne has been a poor seller for some time," said Jim Sluzewski, spokesman for Macy's. "We think we have several other brands like Rachel Roy and Tommy Hilfiger and our own labels that can take its place."
Claiborne, however, says it's making the move because Penney has been a stronger marketer of the Claiborne brands, which have been losing money in the forest of brands sold in traditional department stores.
"People once would have been shocked to hear GM was in bankruptcy, too," said William McComb, chief executive of Liz Claiborne Inc. "This is really about following our customer and winning with the winners."
J.C. Penney Co.'s 10-year exclusive deal includes an option for the moderately priced retailer to take ownership of the brand in five years. Penney already was the only chain carrying Liz & Co. and Concepts by Claiborne. Claiborne thinks it can become a $1 billion brand at JCPenney stores.
Liz Claiborne Inc. will continue to supply Macy's and other department stores with its other big brands: Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand, DKNY Jeans, Kate Spade and Kensie. The only place other than JCPenney in the United States to stock a Claiborne brand will be TV shopping network QVC, which carries Liz Claiborne New York, designed by Isaac Mizrahi.
Claiborne also will shift the merchandise in its 93 factory outlet stores to the Liz Claiborne New York line from Mizrahi, but use those stores to help get rid of the holiday leftovers through the winter.
There will be no change in its Dana Buchman line, which is sold only at Kohl's.
Meanwhile, QVC rival HSN has deals with designer Naeem Khan for her Timeless line and the luxe apparel team of Mark Badgley and James Mischka for a line of sportswear, jewelry and shoes priced from $39 to $400 that debuts in November.
Such appearances are more evidence that HSN chief executive Mindy Grossman has turned "what was once a dumping ground for celebrity jewelry lines (into) a destination for legitimate designers," wrote Amy Odell in New York magazine's fashion blog.
Well, it looks like they finally went down the toilet. Now I'm just wondering when all their other brands like Juicy will start going down as well. Well... I guess it's technically already started since you've been able to find Juicy at TJ Maxx and whatnot. The part about Isaac's stuff being sold on QVC is really sad though. Maybe he should do another line for Target or something.
This is really about following our customer and winning with the winners.
Wtf, like JCP is much better than Macys. lol.
Liz Claiborne is always on sale plus their bags and accessories imho are not that impressive, so I'm really not that surprised the Macy's pushed them out the door.
Also I really hope Juicy Couture doesn't completely die out.. I love their velours!
^^^ That's what I'm saying. This is a sign that the company is doing bad. I don't care for the Liz Claiborne brand either, but the company owns tons of other brands/designers. I'm just afraid they are going to pull all of them down with them. KWIM? Juicy doesn't deserve this.
And I actually do like Kensie, they have such cute clothes.
Oh I know! I have a couple Kensie items in my closet, they are super cute. As for Juicy Couture, deep down I kinda had a feeling something like this was going to happen. I was so sad when they sold out to LC, and well, now look what's going to happen. ... ...well, hopefully it doesn't that is.
WOW!! I had no idea LC owned so many other brand names. I think they do a terrible job of marketing the Liz Claiborne label. I went a couple of months ago to a really huge indoor mall, which was packed. they had a massive LC store there, with a max. of 5 customers browsing. the average age of the customers seemed to be 65+.
I do like JCP for some of their everyday wear clothes line like 5th Avenue and Worthington and Jones of New York, but i never really liked their bag selection.
It will be interesting to see what the outcome is
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^^^ Yeah, they own sooooooo many brands now. Plus all the private labels that they do for department stores. It's like they were trying to buy out as many companies as they possibly could there for awhile. But it seems to me that maybe they should have spent less time trying to acquire more companies and more time focusing on the company they already had.
So is this going to affect the fragrances at all, I wonder???
And don't get me wrong about JCP, they are a nice store if you're looking for inexpensive clothes and housewares. And they are the only means by which I can shop at a Sephora unless I shop there online.
Liz Claiborne sold it's name to JC Penney
Well... I guess it's technically already started since you've been able to find Juicy at TJ Maxx and whatnot. The part about Isaac's stuff being sold on QVC is really sad though. Maybe he should do another line for Target or something. 
lol.
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