Fashion journalists have been talking for a while about "masstige"--the phenomenon of luxury lines extending their brands into more affordable product lines. Now it looks like Ann Taylor is attempting to move in the other direction. The company is putting a new line into its stores known as "Collection", which will feature more expensive buttons and linings, among other things.
I don't wear a lot of suits, and anyway it looks like the clothes will be slightly more expensive versions of Ann Taylor's studiously inoffensive main line, so it's hard to see myself snapping up a ton of these items. On the other hand, the company does a booming business in places like DC, where if fits the conservative dress code of most offices. You can't swing a cat in downtown Washington without sending it through the petites department of an Ann Taylor Loft; it seems to be to our nation's capital, what Starbucks and Duane Reade drugstores were to my former home. So I'm sure the new line will do quite well.
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IINM, "masstige" refers not to makers of luxury goods aiming downward, but rather to mass-produced items that people think (often due to skillful marketing) are handmade or otherwise carefully crafted. Godiva chocolates are a good example. Advertisements and packaging makes it seem as if the chocolates are handmade in small workshops by a European craft producer. In reality, Campbell Soup company makes them in a factory in Reading, Pennsylvania. Coach leather goods are another example. Mass-produced, with a carefully created handcrafted aura.
Posted by Peter | September 14, 2007 10:47 AM