Tuesday, March 24, 2009

The Bead Stylist: Gap's Banana Republic Brand to Focus on Limited Edition Jewelry Designs

A fascinating read for me especially since, not long ago, I posted in a forum that it's quite possible large, and small retail boutique stores, will be looking to offer unique limited pieces of jewelry designs and that Etsy may very well be the place for them to find many of their unique creations.

The new test stores they are creating, according to this MarketWatch article 'Gaps Banana Republic To Open Accessory Store' (for some reason can't link to this article)

"For our customers today, affordability is paramount and being fashionable is always in style," said Jack Calhoun, president of Banana Republic, in a statement.

My previous blog post about how fashion designers are refocusing is giving even more credit by this particular MarketWatch article.

Just think about it, we are talking about The Gap, Banana Republic; and while sales may be down you can be sure that they put some serious research dollars behind designing this new concept store. And if their research has determined that limiting styles to only 100 pieces per design is what customers want and this trend takes off; well, jewelry designers that don't care to mass produce may want to take notice!

It remains to be seen how the test store may benefit Banana Republic, analysts said. In comparison, about 100 listings of Banana Republic's existing jewelry collection were featured on its Web site, offering earnings and other trinkets mostly under $50.

No comments:

Post a Comment