We often write about the changing landscape of retail marketing and shopping. The typical shopping experience we knew has all but disappeared with the rise of the Internet. Gone are the thick catalogues and magazines for fashion and home that came in the mail. Today, the Web is the giant catalogue for everything.
One catalogue that stood out and built brand recognition was Lands End. They were sort of like LL Bean but a little different, a homespun, cheaper version of Ralph Lauren, but different. It was because of this fuzzy brand identity that the company faltered. Who were their loyal customers who shopped them first? Flawed research led them to believe that the Sears customer was also their customer. Lands End boutiques appeared in Sears stores, a brief marketing partnership that failed badly.
Canvas’ Boyfriend Shirt
A year and a half ago, Lands End brought in a young hip New York minded woman, with experience at Dolce and Gabbana, to re-energize the brand with a new division named Canvas. She featured Emma Watson and Gloria Steinem on the new Canvas editorial pages. Sadly, as the new collection launched this September, she too was jettisoned.
Canvas’ Crop Pants
Which brings us to us. A key mission of our blog is to ferret out different and appealing clothes and accessories for our friends and women of our generation, instead of relying on those few retailers who try to market to us. Lands End certainly fits the traditional look for women of a certain age. And then along came Canvas, with a line we were excited to show you. But it seems now that the new look may well disappear. We say that is unfortunate. We love to support any company that it looking to diversify and give us some fabulous new options.
So the message today is to have a look. If you like what we are showing you, we suggest you buy now as this line may soon be gone:
http://www.landsend.com/products/womens-shirt-dress/id_298441?sku_0=::C2H (sample from collection
http://fortune.com/2016/10/06/lands-end-ceo/
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