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LIZ
CLAIBORNE built her fashion business by catering to the
needs of working women. Over the years, the brand
deserted them, as did much of the fashion industry. When
Claiborne died Tuesday, at 78, her company was trying to
woo them back.
Claiborne established her company in 1976 along with
Leonard Boxer, Jerome Chazen and her husband, Art
Ortenberg. It was dedicated to providing professional
clothes for women, particularly younger ones, who were
entering the workforce in droves. At a time when
conventional wisdom—and John T. Molloy of Dress for
Success—had businesswomen dressing like slightly curvier
men in gray flannel suits and floppy ties, Claiborne
created clothes that were appropriate, stylish, but also
feminine. They were fashionable but not trendy. And most
importantly, they were priced so that both the executive
and her secretary could afford them.
Claiborne’s emphasis on a woman’s work wardrobe was not
just savvy, it was also a reflection of the designer
herself. She was an entrepreneur and her company remains
one of the few major firms on
Seventh Avenue
founded by a woman. She was also one of the few female
designers with name recognition on par with heavyweights
such as Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger.
From the
beginning, Liz Claiborne clothes were meant to be
practical and commercial—precisely what so much designer
clothing today is not. She believed in creating
ensembles that a woman could mix and match, enabling her
to squeeze a week’s wardrobe from only a handful of
separates. Her insistence on selling women a head-to-toe
look—jacket, blouse, skirt and maybe even a bonus pair
of pants—helped change the way clothes were sold in
department stores. Through the force of her talent,
business acumen and tenacity, she pushed stores to stop
segregating pants in one area and blouses in another.
Claiborne wanted customers to see her entire collection,
and the logic of her personal aesthetic, in one
location. Today, grouping clothes by brand is routine.
During
the label’s heyday in the 1970s and early ’80s, it had a
loyal following of women who trusted “Liz,” as they
often referred to the collection, to wardrobe them for
the office in a way that did not sacrifice their
individuality, their femininity or their upward
mobility. Even now, customers offer misty-eyed
recollections of a favorite pair of Liz Claiborne
trousers or a certain skirt that they wore then.
When
Claiborne retired in 1989, the brand began to suffer.
Her singular vision had defined the label, but once she
was gone, the clothes were designed by a team. Customers
complained that the clothes, once restrained but modern,
were now dowdy and matronly. Their disappointment with
the brand eventually turned to indifference.
Department stores, where so much of the Liz Claiborne
business was based, also went into decline, and the
brand’s business suffered as a result. To right the
company financially, it began to expand dramatically
beginning in the mid-1990s. Liz Claiborne Inc. is now a
$5-billion conglomerate that includes brands as diverse
as Enyce, Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand Dungarees, Kate
Spade and, its most recent addition, the designer label
Narciso Rodriguez. Many of its acquisitions have
prospered, most notably Juicy Couture. But the label
that started it all—Liz Claiborne—continued to decline
and drag down profits. Earlier this month, the
corporation announced that it was reorganizing in an
attempt to improve its finances.
The
company’s recent aesthetic failings have been of its own
making, but it has also suffered because of shifts
within the business culture and the fashion industry.
When the brand was launched, the idea of dressing women
for work was a novel one and an interesting design
challenge. Offices had dress codes; fashion had rules.
There was a clear distinction between work clothes and
leisure ones.
But in
time, the idea of “career dressing” became almost
anachronistic. Business casual attire came to the fore.
The pulled-together, coordinated look that was a
hallmark of the Claiborne tradition was marginalized by
the fashion industry because fewer women needed it. Who
needs a blazer and a coordinating skirt when it’s just
fine to wear a sundress and ballet shoes to the office?
Designers shunned the suit. Even Giorgio Armani, a name
synonymous with high-end women’s business clothes, was
loath to put too many tailored blazers on his runways.
Today,
the fashion industry is most interested in youth
culture, premium denim and handbags. Where once Liz
Claiborne was celebrated for helping young women go into
the workforce looking like adults, now adults are
interested in looking like adolescents.
The
fashion industry emphasizes clothes a woman might wear
on holiday, to cocktails or shopping. It isn’t
particularly interested in what a woman might wear to
work.
In 2005
Liz Claiborne named Richard Ostell its new creative
director. He was charged with modernizing the aesthetic,
improving the quality of the merchandise and
reconnecting with working women, who may not need a suit
for the office, but would at least like to look
polished. In effect, the company is trying to get back
to its original philosophy.
Claiborne left her mark on the fashion industry because
of her respect, admiration and empathy for working
women. She changed the nature of department stores,
cracked the Fortune 500 and successfully took her
company public in 1981. And she never shied away from
the notion that celebrating personal style is good for
business. |
