Pi-Consulting

Just as High Fashion decides it reigns supreme, something happens to disrupt the hegemony of the proprietary designer label. The battlements of America’s fashion retail business are being stormed by… retailers’ Own Label goods, of all unlikely new entrants.

Those who thought that Designer Label giants would rule the mall for a thousand years are blinking in disbelief at an upstart source of sales which was always supposed to be constrained to the point of insignificance by its relentless dowdiness. Top names like Liz Claiborne are staring into the abyss of precipitous sales fall-offs, while retailer JC Penney laughs all the way to the bank with the takings from its own labels such as Worthington, a.n.a, and Arizona. These “names from nowhere” already represent half of Penney’s clothing sales. Macy’s have turned over significant retail space to their own labels such as American Rag and Alfani. Far from being confined to the USA, similar trends are also overturning top brands’ presumption of supremacy in London stores like Harrods and Selfridges. (more…)