Designers want to control their brands

We've posted before about the havoc wrought by department stores, especially Saks, in taking panicky markdowns last fall, which many designers feel caused serious damage to their brand names.

Now some of the designers, according to this Wall Street Journal article, are seeking to regain control over their brands, and specifically over the pricing of their products. One tactics is to demand to be left out of "storewide" sales:

These days, many fashion brands are effecting their own pushback, demanding to be left out of department stores' sales. "All our brands are taking great care to ensure that what happened in November will not happen again," says Paola Milani, a spokeswoman for Gucci Group, which owns Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci and other brands. "The idea is to maintain pricing coherence in the regions in which our products are sold regardless of channel of distribution." [ ... ]

Saks, which was a leader in last fall's discounting, declined to comment. But this week, notices for Saks's 25% off "Friends and Family" sale exclude, in the teensy fine print, more than 40 top luxury brands, including Gucci, Cartier, Chanel, Loro Piana, Oscar de la Renta, Zegna and Christian Louboutin.

One wonders if that will be legal if the Leegin decision is repealed, as Senator Kohl is demanding.

Other tactics include opening new stores, in order to reduce dependence on the department store channel:

Her company depends on department stores for 70% of its revenue, which was $273 million in 2008. But she would like to whittle that share down to 50%.

To that end, Eileen Fisher will open six new stores of its own this year in the U.S. -- slightly accelerated from an average of five new stores per year -- and is launching a costly new technology platform for Internet sales that will offer greater flexibility, allowing online customers to pick up items in stores, for instance.

Probably not a bad idea anyway, considering the current state of department stores. Another variation is opening leased departments within the d-stores.