High fashion, once the domain of the rich, is now affordable for the working woman, because of a recent turnaround in the fashion industry.
Prompted by an exploding market of professional working women searching for alternatives to mannish business suits, in 1982 Anne Klein and other designers developed second-tier lines or diffusions of their couture collections. Some designers opened their doors wide enough for every consumer to purchase their label.
Jill Packard, a 38-year-old investment broker from upstate New York, took advantage of the change. Although she has a keen eye for designer styles, they had been unaffordable. Now, she and others like her choose from a varied selection of moderately priced designer fashions.
For $500 Packard can buy a Portfolio - Perry Ellis' secondary line - three-piece silk and gabardine suit. A similar look from the Perry Ellis couture collection had previously been cost-prohibitive at about $1,200, causing her to purchase lackluster clothing that she tired of quickly.
Some could argue that this is history repeating itself. When English couturier Charles Frederick Worth established the first house of fashion in the early 1850s, his middle-class clientele could not afford the magnificent fabrics that Worth best understood. Therefore, he issued a lower-priced line, nevertheless still inspired by his keen sense of feminine design. Worth could not deal in haute couture until his designs reached the royal European fashion trendsetters a few years later.
A Fashionable Customer
Today, designers are responding to the upper-middle-class woman, who, unlike Worth's first customer, is worldly, independent, and fashion conscious. She wants to dress well, and is willing to pay $80-$250 per garment for a designer-status wardrobe.
Renowned designers are able to appeal to this consumer by offering distinct styling but with less expensive fabrication. Cost is also reduced by mass production, whereas couture lines are handmade.
These high-fashion-inspired lines of ready-to-wear and sportswear clothing, referred to as street couture, cost the shopper an average 30 to 60 percent less than the designer's top styles. There may not be beading or special stitching, but the buyer still has a designer look and quality.
"She may be passing up cashmere for shetland wool, or a China silk for a crepe de Chine, but she is getting the classy image she wants," observes Harold Coda, costume curator of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).
The fashion houses have literally sewn up another market by responding to working women's needs. "In my line of business, I am dealing with men and need to have a strong image," observes Packard. "As soon as Perry Ellis and a few other designers issued clothing at affordable prices, I found what I needed."
She maintains that men pay $300 to $400 and more for their suits and that women have to dress
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