You’ve never seen a Liz Claiborne collection like this. The spring-summer look of Liz Claiborne is nothing short of a reinvention of the brand. While the patterns and prints are nothing new, this season’s pieces are looking a lot fresher, more colorful, more whimsical, and younger than ever in the brand’s 33-year history.
For many years, any shopping expedition for me at Macy’s or in an outlet mall in the US always included a visit to the Liz Claiborne section. I loved their office wear, loved that their petite line for jackets fit me well, and that most of the casual shirts had a sporty appeal, and a penchant for stripes and boatnecks. It was very Sabrina-esque on a boat. I loved it until the collections began boring me to tears, looking more like they belonged in my mother’s closet than mine.
This season, however, Liz Claiborne looks and feels practically like a newly launched brand. How did they do that? They got a new creative director — Isaac Mizrahi, the designer whose wit and red-carpet escapades have included feeling up Scarlett Johansson, and designing on the spot for selected women in the audience of his talk show Isaac.
The spring collection of Liz Claiborne brings the company’s heritage up-to-date. “Liz Claiborne is an American fashion icon,” says Mizrahi. “Her clothes were not only beautiful, not only smart, they were revolutionary. She invented separates, and invented an entirely new category in the department store. She made fashion friendly and accessible, and in doing so she became every woman’s best friend. These are all ideals I treasure and I’m honored to have the opportunity to build on this fantastic legacy and excited to reestablish the brand as a must-have.”
The legacy of Claiborne includes changing the way we shop today. She was the first designer to insist that her collection be placed together on the department store sales floor instead of in separate clothing categories. It meant shoppers didn’t have to go from one department to another department to coordinate an outfit — they could mix and match pieces from the collection to create entire outfits. This changed the way department stores arranged clothing for sale and created the role of fashion merchandising as we know it today.
Mizrahi created the first Liz Claiborne spring collection under his leadership on the concept of “colormath,” which is “just enough color and just enough math to equal the perfect balance of brights and neutrals, geometrics and florals, feminine touches and masculine details.”
He says, “Color is luxury — the new spring collection comes in a bounty of colors to be worn head-to-toe or mixed and matched with neutrals to create hundreds of outfits.”
Dare I say Liz’s spring colors are very Gap, the way Patrick Robinson envisioned the colors of optimism and happiness in a past spring collection? There are popsicle oranges, yellows, blues, plum and lilac. While the striped office shirt has been a staple in a Liz woman’s closet, the new colors give it a fresh twist.
Silhouettes include classic shapes like tailored boy blazers paired with pencil skirts and full skirts, shirtdresses layered under coats and jackets, cropped pants in skinny and wide leg.
I love how Mizrahi worked the peony print into a shirtdress and separates, and lined jackets and trench coats with it. It’s so feminine and yet strong. He also used a lot of ginghams and stripes in flirty dresses, sweaters, and blouses, which you wear anywhere, anytime, whether it’s a day at work or shopping with girlfriends on the weekend, or maybe a boat ride on the bay.
Mizrahi says, “The most important question a fashion designer could ask himself or herself is still: What do busy women need? Now I’ve got plenty of ideas! But I decided to step outside and ask these so-called women I design for — my customers, these hurrying brown hens and birds of paradise — what they think about when they think about clothes.”
Mizrahi got his answers: Women think about color and cut. They want dressing to be easy, to be able to buy an outfit head to toe and not have to over-think pairings, they want flexible separates, and “glorious mishmash,” as Mizrahi would put it.
“The creative spirit is something I take seriously. Claiborne suffered a little when her company exploded — she was pulled from the backrooms and dragooned into management. I’ve made a pact that I will be doing nothing but designing my collections. I’m a fashion designer, not a manager,” says Mizrahi. “It sounds a little ordinary, I know. But you know what? I don’t love extraordinary — or fussy. I love the ordinary. There’s this quote of Claiborne’s that I adore. She said, ‘I can create outrageous things, but who is going to wear them?’ I couldn’t agree more. We’re both American designers. I’m an American doing an American label. Those ladies on the corner — working, not working — those women are my customers. And my muses.”
Mizrahi has been designing for over 20 years. Apart from his own couture collection, he teamed up with Target in 2003 to launch an exclusive collection of clothing and accessories, shoes and home furnishings. His first few collections for Target were really nice — pieces you wouldn’t believe were being sold at such affordable prices, but in the last three years, I think he became either too busy to create for this mass brand or too lazy or too jaded. His Target apparel simply blended with the rest.
Isaac Mizrahi’s collaboration with Liz Claiborne is something both the designer and the brand need: for Mizrahi to get back to a wider customer base, and for Claiborne to discover new ones.
Spring is truly the season for rebirth.
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In the Philippines, Liz Claiborne is exclusively distributed by Stores Specialists, Inc. (SSI) and is located at Rustan’s Makati, Greenbelt 5, Power Plant Mall. Shangri-La Plaza Mall, TriNoma, and Robinsons Midtown Mall.