Designer Lela Rose Releases Dress Collection for the LOFT

Designer Lela Rose is well-known for her upscale women’s line and bridal collection sold at stores like Neiman Marcus.   Now she is the latest designer to enter the budget ranks of lower-priced clothing with a capsule collection of dresses on sale exclusively at the LOFT.  The collection includes three dresses  priced at $98.00 and one dress with beading priced at $118.00.  The designs are rather minimalistic including a strapless white linen shift dress and a simple floral dress.  Lela Rose for LOFT is sized for mass marketing with a range of sizes from 0 to 18 to appeal to many shapes and sizes.

Lela Rose previously did a collection of shoes for Payless, but this is her first partnership with a retailer to produced lower-priced garments. I’ll be interested to see how this line sells.  I think the market is becoming over crowded with designers for less and the collections are loosing their distinctiveness and exclusivity.  Witness Calypso St. Barth, already reduced by 30% off at Target, because it hasn’t sold as quickly as planned.  Matthew Williamson and Kinder are also on sale at your local Macy’s.  I think buyers are starting to wait for these collections to go on sale to buy them, knowing that is they wait it out, retailers will have to drop the prices to move the garments out of inventory.