Frugal fashion comes to discount stores

By Lauren Sherman

updated 5:46 p.m. ET Sept. 13, 2006

Behnaz Sarafpour is noted in the fashion world for her refined yet feminine frocks, and this fall she is feeding the frenzy for dresses. Her ready-to-wear collection includes a mod black mini accented with black lace and a lush, green velvet number that plays up the voluminous skirt style that has been so important these past few seasons.

Of course, Sarafpour’s covetable creations are available only to women willing and able to drop $2,000 for a dress — but not for long.

Enter Target. The mass-market discount store has scored with its GO International Collection, a series of designer collaborations that bring high fashion to the masses. It began with Brit Luella Bartley and most recently featured French designer Sophie Albou’s label Paul & Joe. Sarafpour is the next in line, and her capsule collection will debut this November, just in time for the holiday party season.

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Each collection lives at Target for a buzz-inducing 90 days. Sarafpour’s collection is on the outrageous side of cheap — ranging from $7.99 for an embellished headband to $89.99 for a leopard print faux-fur coat.

Though the prices for customers are low, the payoff is potentially huge for the designers. With Target, Sarafpour will reach the broadest audience of her career, which up until now consisted of a well-received collection established in 2001 and a tremendous amount of support from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Whether such partnerships are a big hit for the bottom lines of retailers is an open question.

“For the retailers, it’s about elevating the perception of their brand for the consumers,” says Marc Beckman, president and co-owner of New York-based Designer’s Management Agency. He has brokered many designer-retailer partnerships, including those between Jones Apparel Group-owned Nine West and Vivienne Westwood, Easy Spirit and edgy Imitation of Christ designer Tara Subkoff, and Laura Poretzky’s Abaeté and Payless.

Forbes.com Lagerfeld, the ultra-exclusive designer for Chanel, Fendi and Lagerfeld Gallery, wowed the fashion crowd with his collection for H&M.

Sarafpour follows in the footsteps of now-well-knowns including Cynthia Rowley, who created Swell for Target, Todd Oldham, who now designs for La-Z-Boy, and Isaac Mizrahi, yet another Target favorite, all of whom went from designing small collections (even obscure) for high-end retailers to achieving national fame and fortune.

The recipe — one part high fashion, one part low prices — has appeared to work for retailers like Target in the past, but Andrew Jassin, founder and managing director of the Jassin O’Rourke Group, a strategic consulting network based in New York City, believes there is always a risk in teaming up with an unknown: “Although Behnaz Sarafpour has achieved some level of success in the minds of certain customers and in certain stores like Barneys or perhaps Bergdorf, it’s not a national name and not well positioned as a trademark.”

However, it may have been Sarafpour’s below-the-radar profile that brought her to Target’s attention in the first place. Her former employer, Mizrahi, may be the best example of designer diffusion success at Target. His high-end label, featured in 1995’s documentary “Unzipped,” was shut down in the late ’90s, but after he emerged with a clothing and accessories collection for the mega-store in 2003, he became a household name. He has also returned to high fashion, creating a custom line for Bergdorf Goodman, making frequent appearances on cable’s Style channel and launching his own magazine, aptly titled “Isaac’s Style Book.”

“Who knew who Isaac Mizrahi was before he partnered up with Target?” observes fashion analyst Marshal Cohen of Port Washington, N.Y.-based NPD Group.

“Mossimo is another good example,” he says. “You had to be in the business or you really had to be a fashionista to even know those two names. Somehow, because of the exposure they get, it legitimizes [the concept] because they’re real designers who just happen to be designing for Target.”

In addition to its capsule collection with Westwood, Jones Apparel Group is working with Thakoon and Sophia Kokosalaki for Nine West. It has also penned a deal with bridal gown designer Vera Wang to develop a line for Kohl’s department stores called Very Vera. This is in addition to its 2-year-old Tara Subkoff line for Easy Spirit venture, which has brought name recognition to Subkoff’s Imitation of Christ couture line, as well as a bit of an edge to the borderline-matronly image of the Easy Spirit brand. Even Payless, a company known more for its cheap choices than fashion-forward sensibilities, recently introduced Abaeté for Payless, created by New York designer Laura Poretzky.

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