Ivanka Trump wanted to sell affordable luxury with her fashion line. Photo / Patrick T. Fallon
At a T.J. Maxx discount shop in the shadow of New York's Queensboro Bridge, there's little sign of Ivanka Trump's fashion label. But she's there.
Dangling next to a bright red Fossil handbag is a single, leather Ivanka Trump satchel. A flip of the tag reveals a US$129 ($182) price, about the same as the other bags on the rack. Spread among the jumble are items by Guess?, Nine West, Steve Madden and even a decidedly cheaper option from the Jessica Simpson Collection.
None of this screams luxury, yet that's the brand image Trump originally envisioned: an icon of extravagance in line with the image her father spent decades trying to build.
When she began selling her brand as a fine jewellery label, she looked to Tiffany's robin's egg-blue box and Christian Louboutin's red-soled pumps for inspiration.
She placed Trump wares in the same realm as such couture names as Harry Winston and Van Cleef & Arpels. She even opened an opulent boutique on Manhattan's Madison Avenue.
Somewhere along the way, though, Ivanka Trump went downmarket. Her label now represents a much more modest image, perhaps recognising exactly where on the retail continuum her products truly reside.
At its heart, Ivanka Trump is a celebrity brand, not a designer fashion house, say industry analysts. It's the messy discount rack, not the gleaming glass jewellery case. And as it turns out, targeting the masses has worked.
"Celebrities, as a branding tool, appeal more to the mass than luxury," says Allen Adamson, the New York-based founder of consulting firm BrandSimple. "The further downmarket she goes, the more horsepower her brand potentially has."
The change began in late 2010, when Trump started her footwear and clothing businesses. She chose to go after a much-less-glossy group of people, discarding four-digit price-tags in favour of numbers more on par with the broader market.
President Donald Trump's election last year accelerated that shift. After losing her most glamorous retail partners amid the controversies and boycotts that have marked her father's administration, she halted production of the diamond jewellery that was her only remaining fashion business.
Gem-laden necklaces at US$10,000 didn't make a lot of sense for a brand that also peddles discount heels at DSW -- a low-price shoe warehouse.
In its place is a "fashion jewellery" collection.
There's no solid gold or diamonds: some items are available on sale for as little as US$11.
Trump has long promoted her clothes as work-appropriate garb the working woman can afford. The Ivanka Trump label now clocks in alongside mall staples Banana Republic and Ann Taylor, brands far from the luxury segment.
Back in the summer of 2010, Ivanka Trump held court at Trump Tower in New York, hosting retail buyers and members of the press eager for a look at her new collection.
The further downmarket she goes, the more horsepower her brand potentially has.
She displayed a wide selection of styles, from high heels to sneakers, with retail prices spanning US$60 to US$160. The initial feedback was strong enough to prompt Trump to accelerate the line's timing.
Her apparel line came next.
In February 2011, it landed on department store racks, featuring US$80 blouses and US$200 jackets. Trump said she wanted the clothes to exude "timeless glamour" despite the mid-level pricing.
Business boomed. Her clothing line grew to a US$100 million business by flaunting the counter-intuitive promise of "affordable luxury". She expanded into home goods and fragrances as her label entered more stores.
As the company grew, glamorous jewellery gave way to mass-market merchandise. Items emblazoned with Ivanka Trump's IT logo are now sold via the online marketplaces of Wal-Mart Stores, Kmart, and Sears.
Executives said in March that the brand's average customers are aged from 25 to 40, with an annual income of US$60,000 to US$100,000 -- far from the sort of shoppers who shell out thousands of dollars for gem-encrusted necklaces.
This was not the first daughter's original vision -- not by a long shot. As Trump explained in a 2009 book, she wanted to sell "heirloom chic" jewellery, a cleaned-up version of classic Hollywood-style glamour.
"We wanted to offer luxurious pieces in the five, and six, and even seven-figure range, but at the same time we wanted to offer entry-level pieces priced between US$500 and US$1000," Trump wrote.
But as the years passed, and her mid-market business chugged along, Trump's high-end aspirations struggled to gain traction. People with that kind of money weren't buying.
Labels that want to sell high-end goods while also occupying the outlet racks risk tarnishing the lustre of the former in favour of higher sales of the latter.
When a brand is too available -- especially at off-price venues -- the value of the entire name can shift. Of the high-end department stores that were once home to Ivanka Trump's products, only Bloomingdale's remains.
"It's very hard to authentically be in the luxury channel and at the same time be in the more accessible price-points," says Robert D'Loren, chief executive of Xcel Brands, a brand licensing and management company.
The priciest pieces of Ivanka Trump jewellery left are a pair of gold-plated necklaces with pendants of reconstituted stones. They cost US$148.
Ivanka Trump now occupies an office in the White House. Though she says she no longer runs her company, she still owns it, having refused to divest or forgo payouts from a trust holding some of her assets. The brand has made efforts to distance itself from its namesake -- cutting her image out of promotional material, for instance -- but shoppers can't ignore the name.
Ivanka Trump, the fashion label, polarises shoppers because of the same political divisions that polarise America.
Nevertheless, Trump's goods seem to be selling well since her father's campaign began. Sales were up 21 per cent in 2016, the company said in February.
What's less clear is the longer term impact on her brand. In February, the label lost two high-end partners. Nordstrom, once her biggest retailer, stopped selling Trump shoes and apparel, while the even swankier Neiman Marcus dropped her jewellery.
In the end, the future of Ivanka Trump's brand may be less dependent on the success of her downmarket strategy than on the success of her father's presidency. As far as shoppers are concerned, they're pretty much the same.
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