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Spring Fashion Week 2007 Day 4


Spring Fashion Week 2007 Day 4 Image courtesy of Dexinger.com
New American designer Hilton Hollis has been getting quite a bit of press lately, so when I received an email from a reader about his collection, I decided to take a peek. From a design perspective, the line doesn't look like anything new, but from a pr, branding and overall marketing perspective, what's interesting about Hollis' line is that he is directly targeting those who purchase in the mid price range-skipping higher end customers all together.

This is an interesting approach because it has the possiblity of challenging fashion's hierachy. So what's this hierachy? As per the wonderful blog, Fashion Incubator (who also evaluated the Hollis line), here's the basic breakdown of the hierachy (I added in the mass market category) and my very rough definitions of each category:

Fashion Hierachy
  • Haute Couture- "High Fashion" (Chanel, Dior, made to wear items from top, commonly Parisian designers). A much over used term.
  • Designer RTW (Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, pre -made and sold on the racks).
  • Bridge (not quite Chanel, but not quite Jones New York. This term is used a lot and the line between bridge and contemporary seems to be blurred).
  • Contemporary ( Basically the stuff sold at the department stores and includes designers like Tracey Reese and Nanette Lepore to Ellen Tracy and Dana Buchman).
  • Mass Market (Isaac Mizrahi at Target, Lagerfeld at H&M, etc).

Are young designers starting aspire to be more like Isaac Mizrahi (at Target) than Christian Dior? Are we going to start to see designers start their lines at places like Target or Wal-Mart and then work their way up the fashion hierachy? Are we seeing this trend because the line has been so blurred between Haute Couture and Mass Market? Why should a shopper pay $30,000 for a Haute Couture dress when they can get the a dress from the designer for $30 at H&M?

For an excellent glossary on fashion terms and terminology, check out the always informative blog Fashion Incubator. The blog is like 2 years of fashion design school online.

From thebudgetfashionista


Posted by: Trista    Source