Word: karan
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...surprise success of Donna Karan's DKNY that inspired the industry. Selling such staples as $90 cotton poplin blouses and $365 navy wool blazers, DKNY last year hit $100 million in sales and should reach $140 million this year. Launched less than three years ago, the company is proving to be the salvation of Seventh Avenue. Clothing designers, like businessmen everywhere, tend to fall all over a winning formula, and store racks are groaning with DKNY wannabes. "I call our rivals the Pac-Men," says DKNY's president, Denise Seegal. "They're all coming after us." This fall...
...late 1980s, women were into designer labels. That's not where it's at now, and we may never get back there," says Frank Mori, president of Takiyho, which owns Anne Klein and has a 50% stake in Donna Karan. "The days of selling clothes on the basis of brand name alone are over," says Ralph Toledano, president of Karl Lagerfeld...
Though the bridge market existed on a small scale during the 1970s, it really took root in the early 1980s with the launch of the Anne Klein II line, designed by a young Donna Karan and Louis Dell'Olio. Anne Klein II, which found its niche selling career clothes just as professional women were entering the work force in large numbers, shared the spotlight with Ellen Tracy, an established line that was spruced up by designer Linda Allard...
...market hummed along at moderate speed until early 1989, when Donna Karan rewrote the rules by tapping into a powerful consumer demand that others had somehow failed to satisfy. DKNY offered stylish, sporty clothes at decent (though hardly bargain-basement) prices. It is now running neck and neck with Ellen Tracy, though DKNY is sold in 450 stores in the U.S., compared with 1,000 for Tracy. And DKNY has probably cut into the market share of Anne Klein II, whose sales have slipped from $130 million in 1989 to an estimated $110 million this year...
...speculates Vogue editor in chief Anna Wintour, are in synch with the "breaking up of fashion," in her words. "Women are looking for things that are more their own," she says, "and less of a designer statement." In other words, fewer women feel the need to wear Armani or Karan or any label head to toe. They'll happily pair a Chanel jacket, say, with a DKNY skirt and not worry about getting reported to the fashion police...