The luxe low down

It took 15 minutes for New Yorkers to wipe out Roberto Cavalli’s line for H&M when it first came out for the Swedish brand’s chain of stores’ fall collection last year. How long these shoppers waited in line is another undocumented number. Stella McCartney’s tandem with the same trend purveyor two years earlier also produced the same near-pandemonium, as well as her collection for Target Australia, which took up store space for all of three and a half minutes in the first quarter of 2007.

H&M is expecting the same kind of response from style-philes when they launch Comme des Garcons for H&M in November of this year. As the store giant has long been known as the launch pad for everything hip, daring and uber-trendy, one can only guess how much excitement the promise of Rei Kawakubo’s avant-garde, Japanese-y designs at $100 (as opposed to $1,000) is now generating.

It seems that the retail world has finally found its new formula for success: make luxury affordable enough to be bought at an impulse, but designed and created at standards still relatively luxurious to be considered an aspirational must-have. Instead of thumbing their noses at the idea of designing for the masses, designers are just all too keen to give the greater public their style due. Stella McCartney just completed her nth collaboration with a mass-market brand when she unveiled her eco-friendly collection for French bag brand Le Sportsac. And there’s still her ongoing line for Adidas. Zac Posen, beloved by red carpet strutters Rihanna, Liv Tyler and Natalie Portman, just finished a run with Target Australia (now it’s homegrown wonder Colette Dinnigan doing sweet, lacy, reasonably-priced lingerie). Style doyenne and Sex and the City stylist Patricia Fields is set to come up with a 35-piece capsule collection with no less than Marks & Spencer, that UK department store brand so adored by the Good Housekeeping lot. (Should we start expecting cabbage roses to start sprouting on M&S frocks?) On our own turf, the designer-retailer tie-up started gunning for mass approval last year with young established designer Ivar Aseron lending his structural aesthetics to casual club Folded & Hung in the most part of 2006 and 2007.  Rhett Eala also went casual last year when he was named creative director for local brand Collezione. His C2 collection is easily one of the most recognizable among the local style set and promotes nationalistic pride as much as local creativity, as Rhett has made the Philippine map and the Philippine flag the focal point of his designs (the distinct Philippine topography is stamped on everything from men’s dress shirts to long, feminine dresses). In effect, designers and brand names once considered too high-brow and costly by the regular office worker are now within shopping budget. At the same time, these capsule collections don’t completely alienate the real luxe consumer. While the design process is of well-appointed standards, production of these collaborative pieces is completed in bulk in Chinese or third-world factories just like the rest of mass-produced goods. The affluent still has VIP access to the more luxurious designer standards: handmade, limited or one-of-a-kind, exotic materials, reinforced construction.

Fashion isn’t the only target for all these designer extensions. Veteran designer Frederick Peralta has beddings and furnishings bearing his name being sold in SM department store, and if you ply the southbound EDSA route every day, you won’t miss mass-market brand Red Ribbon’s billboard boasting designer wedding cakes by — again — Frederick Peralta and Rajo Laurel. Even lifestyles usually reserved for the affluent are being designated for affordability. Target, after successful tie-ups with Proenza Schouler and Erin Fetherston, now has eco-fascinated American designer Rogan Gregory creating affordable eco-fashion for the green-minded fashion-phile and making the eco-lifestyle, which has been harshly criticized as something only the rich can afford, more attainable by those who can’t afford to shell out $80 for a simple organic T-shirt. Never mind that the pieces that make up Rogan for Target are as inspiring as a lump of coal, you’ll rarely get the chance to pay as low as $40 for a sweet little black dress made of 100-percent organic cotton.

In their book Trading Up: Why Consumers Want Luxury Goods and How Companies Create Them and the Harvard Business Review article “Luxury for the masses,” retail experts Michael Silverstein and Neil Fisk coined the term “masstige” to refer to products that are “premium but attainable,” products that present high-end characteristics or credentials yet feature prices and market displays accessible to a mass market audience. Years ago, when this term was created, masstige referred to brands such as Coach, which, though pricey, doesn’t enjoy the same luxe recognition as LV or Gucci; Victoria’s Secret, which cuts down the middle between Triumph and opulence-promoting lingerie brand La Perla; Bath and Body Works, with lotions pricier than drugstore brands yet lots cheaper than Kiehl’s.

In the era of designer collaborations and capsule collections, masstige takes on new meaning and encompasses a trend that favors even a bigger market share and lower price point. We’re witnessing another mass uprising but unlike the bloody, ragged, peasant-driven revolts of past mass rebellions, components of this new movement are clad in an animal-print Cavalli frock.