NEW YORK — Liz Claiborne Inc. is ready to hit the city again.
The company, which revealed the termination of its City DKNY license with Donna Karan International late last month, is launching a new better sportswear brand, City Unltd., ready for February deliveries. The new brand will assure department stores the company does not plan to skip a delivery in the better sportswear department, as the last shipment of City DKNY will hit in December. A spokeswoman at Claiborne confirmed no one lost jobs with the closing of the City DKNY brand.
“The City DKNY consumer is a desirable one and we are determining ways to address this target market with this new brand,” said Paul Charron, chairman and chief executive officer of Liz Claiborne, when he announced the company was terminating City DKNY last month.
With the new brand ready for buyers, company executives said they are quite confident in the new label, which they believe will target a fit urban career woman.
“There’s this consumer, who is 25 and up, who resides in a city, is fit and wants to look trend-right, but is also looking for that price value,” said Ninette Ricca, president of City Unltd., who was previously president of City DKNY. “There’s a real opportunity out there for us to become a dominant player with this brand.”
The City Unltd. collection consists of several elements. There are the trendier pieces, which will change each season; the replenishment group, which includes a basic black pantsuit (also available in pinstripe), and the essentials grouping, which includes a line of pants in six different fits. The fashion pieces will all carry a black and white logo tag, while the tags on the essentials will have a signature pink square along with the logo.
“The pants are what we base the rest of the collection on,” Ricca said. “The fit will be consistent each season, but the fabrics will change. With the proper tagging, the consumer will be able to come in, see her fit and without trying it on, she will be able to add more pants to her wardrobe.”
Each pair of pants is named after a U.S. city: the Miami is a loose, easy-fit cargo style; San Francisco is slim with a straight leg; New York is slim at the top and thigh area with a slight boot-cut opening; Las Vegas is a classic boot-cut jeans style; St. Louis is similar to New York, but tighter and slimmer overall, and Boston is a wide-leg style.
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“As time goes on and we see the need, we will add new fits,” said Penny Chan-Jansens, vice president of design and product development at City Unltd. “We’ve already added a gaucho style to move forward into summer.”
The collection also includes an array of knits, like the chunky cotton sweater jacket and rayon cardigans. There are printed silk skirts, silk jersey dresses and woven tops with ruffle details. Paying special attention to detail, the blazers are lined in the company’s signature pink piping and printed lining.
“The whole line shows elements of playing with proportion,” Chan-Jansens said. “We pair shorter jackets with long sexy tops to flatter this woman. Each piece works with the rest of the line, and it’s so easy to put together.”
Because this customer does work out regularly, the fit of City Unltd. is slightly slimmer than other better lines. Executives like to call this a “slim misses'” fit. Ricca said they were also careful to address customer comfort, by adding shelf bras to camisoles and making sure all other tops are bra-friendly.
“It’s more contemporary in fit, but still not completely contemporary,” Ricca said. “It will still fit that misses’ shopper.”
With the launch of the line, the company will debut a direct-to-consumer campaign, with other marketing plans in the works. The line wholesales from $12 to $95, which is below the current price points of City DKNY. Ricca would not divulge first-year sales volume expectations, but did say she expects the line to be in about 490 better specialty and department store doors at the time of the launch. She said City Unltd. will be targeted to retailers like Federated, Nordstrom, Dillard’s and Saks Inc.
DKI and Claiborne launched City DKNY for spring 2001 retailing in about 200 department store doors. It soon expanded, selling in more than 600 doors. But with the flood of designer names entering the better sportswear arena, City DKNY felt the heat, competing with brands such as Calvin Klein, Michael Michael Kors and Lauren Ralph Lauren. City Unltd. will face the same competition, along with some new brands, like the newly launched Kenneth Cole Reaction apparel line, licensed to Bernard Chaus Inc.