Lauren Conrad Collaborating with Kohl's

[stateofbliss]

Kohl's bags 'Hills' star Conrad for celebrity clothing line

By Megan Hupp And Doris Hajewski
Posted: Apr. 22, 2009

Lauren Conrad, star of the MTV reality show "The Hills," is the latest celebrity to launch an exclusive fashion line with Kohl's department stores.
The new LC Lauren Conrad brand will be in 300 Kohl's stores in October, under a long-term contract between Blue Eyed Girl Inc. and Kohl's Corp.
In recent years, similar alliances with celebrities such as Daisy Fuentes and Avril Lavigne have helped to push Kohl's ratio of sales from exclusive and private brands to 42% of the company's total annual revenues of $16.4 billion. This growing reliance on exclusive brands, which are manufactured by contractors under Kohl's supervision, has helped to bolster the company's profits because margins are higher on these items.
The Lauren Conrad line will debut with clothing, but it might be expanded in the future to include shoes, jewelry, handbags, lingerie and sleepwear. The launch will focus primarily on California and the South, but the LC line will be available at several stores in the Milwaukee area. If it is successful, the Lauren Conrad line will be expanded to all 1,000-plus Kohl's stores.
Retail prices will range from $20 to $60, in the middle range for Kohl's, said Don Brennan, senior executive vice president.
The line will feature casual dresses made of jersey and lightly woven knits.
"I like classic lines with a young, fresh look," Conrad said in an interview.
Conrad said she has discussed launching a clothing line with several department stores, but other deals wouldn't have given her as much creative input. Kohl's will allow Conrad to make changes to the line and to choose fabrics and prints, she said.
"She is going to be a true partner," Brennan said.
"I never put my name on something I wouldn't walk into a store and buy," Conrad said.
The Kohl's line is essentially a less expensive version of her boutique line, Lauren Conrad Collection, with a greater variety of denim and knits, Conrad said. The clothes are geared toward shoppers ages 16 to 30. Conrad said she often shops with her mother and likes when they both find clothes from the same designer.
Conrad has stopped production of the boutique line. It will be relaunched in 2010 as a specialty brand with high-end pieces, she said.
The Lauren Conrad Collection debuted in February 2008 and doubled sales in its first year but received tepid applause from fashion writers and blogs. The line's high prices - a knee-length jersey dress costs $225 - made it inaccessible to fans of "The Hills," Conrad said.
Conrad, a native Californian, gained fame when she participated in MTV's "Laguna Beach" while still in high school. Spin-off show "The Hills" follows Conrad as she navigates fights with friends, L.A.'s party scene and a budding fashion career.
Conrad has announced this season will be her last on "The Hills," and she has left her internship with L.A. styling firm People's Revolution. Her departure will air this season.

http://www.jsonline.com/business/43400757.html

 

[stateofbliss]

April 22, 2009
‘The Hills’ Star to Design Clothing for Kohl’s

By STEPHANIE ROSENBLOOM
Lauren Conrad, the honey-blond star of MTV’s hit reality series “The Hills,” has attended the exclusive Crillon Ball in Paris, walked a runway at L.A. Fashion Week and been on the cover of Rolling Stone.
But she is about to brave a new frontier: Kohl’s, the discount department store chain.
Kohl’s is expected to announce Wednesday that in October, Ms. Conrad, 23, will introduce a casual California-inspired clothing line for young women in 300 Kohl’s stores and on Kohls.com. Later, Kohl’s plans to sell the exclusive brand, LC Lauren Conrad, in all of its more than 1,000 stores.
The retailer has become a favorite of analysts in part for a strategy of acquiring well-known brands (or brands by well-known people) and selling them at low prices. It is particularly effective in this economy where shopping is no longer a national pastime.
“To be important to the consumer today, you need to differentiate yourself,” Don Brennan, senior executive vice president of Kohl’s, said Monday in a telephone interview. “You need to give the customer a reason to come in and shop with you. And we feel like these exclusive brands do just that.”
It is a model that its higher scale competitor Target has used to its advantage and that Wal-Mart has struggled to master. Last year, exclusive and private brands at Kohl’s — like Simply Vera by Vera Wang; Elle, which is named for the women’s fashion magazine; and Food Network — accounted for more than 40 percent of the company’s sales. In March, when sales at most of the nation’s department stores open at least a year fell by double digits, sales at comparable Kohl’s stores fell a modest 4.3 percent.
Kohl’s executives are banking on Ms. Conrad’s celebrity — and on young women’s desire to emulate her feminine yet relaxed way of dressing, which has been chronicled for years on two MTV reality shows. Ms. Conrad has grown up on television — first as the good girl in the hit series “Laguna Beach,” about the rivalries and heartaches of privileged California teenagers, and then on “The Hills,” a spinoff that is MTV’s top-rated show.
“The Hills” picks up where “Laguna Beach” left off, following Ms. Conrad’s life as a student at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, an intern at Teen Vogue, a single woman and a voice of reason among petty friends. Ms. Conrad’s rift with her former best friend, Heidi Montag, is one of the most talked-about pop culture rivalries since Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.
The collaboration between Kohl’s and Ms. Conrad has been in the works for more than a year, before the economy took a nose dive. Kohl’s, however, is in a category of stores — discount and low-price chains — uniquely positioned to weather a recession. Prices in Ms. Conrad’s clothing line are $20 to $60. That may work in her favor.
“Now that the economy’s not doing so well, I think it’s everybody that’s looking for bargains,” Ms. Conrad said. “I think that it’s actually great timing.”
This is not Ms. Conrad’s first attempt at designing a clothing line — but the low prices are new. In 2007, MTV and Tangerine promotions helped finance a line by Ms. Conrad called Lauren Conrad Collection. Casual dresses sold for more than $100 — and fans and some fashion writers complained. Ms. Conrad acknowledged in a telephone interview that the clothing line “wasn’t as accessible and affordable as I wanted it to be.”
Her new line will be exclusive to Kohl’s and will have wardrobe basics like jeans and knits. Kohl’s will manufacture, produce, distribute and market the collection. And Ms. Conrad and Kohl’s will collaborate on the designs.
Her original clothing line, Lauren Conrad Collection, is being overhauled, she said. She plans to take it overseas in 2010. “I wanted to give it a whole new feel,” she said, “but that requires us to take a few seasons off.”
Ms. Conrad’s label for Kohl’s represents a new chapter for her: she has said this will be her last season on “The Hills.” Little did fans know that while she was darting in and out of nightclubs with a camera crew, she was spending her days with Kohl’s.
“I’m very excited that I’m allowed to talk about it now,” she said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/22/business/22kohls.html?ref=business&pagewanted=print

 

[kala_dev]

"oh my god like i am like going to like make this soooo happen like like like..... "




i dont get celebrity collaborations. why can't they just do with designers. why lauren. maybe because she has nothing else to do after "the hills" now she is moving down to "the ocean"

 

[BrokenFlowers]

Good for her, smart move.

 

[Zposen]

I'm not a fan of Khols but I gotta agree its a smart move on her part. Its a way to use her celebrity/name that she has slowly built up in the last few years. I am sure she will use whatever power she has to make cute and well made clothes.

Then, she will be able to concentrate on her own personal line and really build it up to be something like Alice and Olivia or Jenny Kayne...

 

[lucy92]

here is a pic of the new line
nytimes.com

 

[stateofbliss]

^ That's actually not from her new line. Kohls just took pictures of her touring their store and checking out the clothes and other inventory.

Here's a clip from her trip to Kohls:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTpxC4RcEl4

 

[HeatherAnne]

Great opportunity for her. The Vera Wang collaboration with Kohl's seemed to be successful and well done so I expect the same for Lauren's line.

 

[lucy92]

the nytimes caption for the pic was:

"Lauren Conrad, a star of the MTV reality series “The Hills,” with a dress from her new clothing line, which is due at 300 Kohl’s stores in October."

perhaps she is walking around a model store of some sort....

 

[couturecouture]

I'm not an especially huge fan of Kohl's but good for her. She is going to be able to reach out to a lot of her fans this way, and reach groups of people who might buy her line because they can afford it and like it and not because of who she is. I think she's a smart girl and I believe her when she say she won't put her name on a product she wouldn't buy.

 

[nicole-marie]

ahahaha I hadn't heard about this. The only real fashion at Kohl's is the Simply Vera line, and it doesn't look like that is going to change anytime soon.

 

[chaneladdict]

This is pretty exciting. and seriously, since Vera came to Kohl's I have been shopping there a lot and everything I've worn from there has gotten compliments. We shall see how this turns out.

 

[Tiffannie]

Thats great because her designs are pretty nice

 

[loladonna]

I'd be surprised if the clothes in post #6 are from her line. The sign above the rack has someone else's name on it. Also, Lauren doesn't really wear or design many prints. Most of her designs have been solid colors.

 

[couturecouture]

I'd be surprised too. I also saw a caption that said she was wearing a dress from her line, and she's not.

 

[Erin]

Great marketing move.. that Times article is very good at showing this.. fashion-wise, their first big coup was getting Simply Vera, IMO.. a large part of Lauren's target market I'm sure shops at Kohl's, especially in the Midwest.

 

[chaneladdict]

I wonder if there are any previews of the line available anywhere yet?

 

[rsnapple]

i would love to know as well

 

[stateofbliss]

This top is from the Kohl's line:

shape.com

She talks a bit more about it here:
http://www.accesshollywood.com/access-extended-lauren-conrad-getting-in-shape_video_1148139

 

[lucy92]

thanks for the update! the top looks decent. i wish they'd stay away from prints in this cheaper line. prints are trickier to make and can thus, look cheap.