16 Nov Karl Lagerfeld relaunchs its brand image

I guess times are tough for everyone. Karl Lagerfeld  will be offering more affordable designs and products on february 2012.

From Fashion Daily news

Karl Lagerfeld, ponytail and sunglasses: the image of the icon of the fashion world soon will be divided endlessly on new products affordable to the eponymous brand, its new president promises Pier Paolo Righi in an interview with AFP .

PARIS, October 24, 2011 (AFP) – The brand’s creator, left fallow for over a year, will be reborn. Major investments will feed a new strategy based on two lines of ready-to-wear and accessories and general public of an ambitious e-commerce site. The energetic septuagenarian designer has worked for thirty years for large houses Chanel and Fendi. But the idea of ​​a luxury more accessible has not left, especially since the huge success of the collection that he created in 2004 for the general Swedish retailer H & M.
The European fund Apax Partners, a shareholder of its brand, decided to keep it as it sold in March 2010 Tommy Hilfiger, says Mr. Righi, himself a veteran of the U.S. shoe at Nike happened before. With the idea of ​​investing in this treasure “largely untapped” in “developing the brand DNA.” Karl Lagerfeld “is a name known worldwide, which speaks to all ages, from China to South America,” said he, installed in the new premises of the brand, a mansion in the heart of Paris Saint-Germain Pres.
“If you ask today how much weight to a consumer brand Karl Lagerfeld, he will tell you spontaneously billion. But it is not at all,” Righi said, referring to retail sales slightly above 100 million. “We are well below the potential,” said the president who took office in August, claiming will “significantly increase” income.
“The investment will be up to those expectations,” he promises, without specifying the amount to run the lines, invest in marketing, increase the teams, with new offices, in addition to Paris, New York and Amsterdam.

Two lines

The iconic image of Mr. Lagerfeld will be the “starting point” of the brand, and inspiration: his shirt collars, gloves, taste this, his learning, multiculturalism, the most Parisian of the Germans. “We are working on several interesting concepts, all around the idea of ​​making the affordable luxury,” says Lagerfeld.
Two lines, each declined for women and men, with accessories, are planned: “Karl,” easily will be launched on January 25 with hundreds of articles 60 to 300 euros sold online exclusively, before a collection Women in the spring, then man in the fall. On parts of the line “energetic, rock and street,” that is “creative and trend,” the letter K is omnipresent, like travel bags, and a logo playing with the silhouette profile of the designer.
On 28 February, the brand will launch a major e-commerce site, with a steady stream of new products, which will also offer content on “Karl” himself.
The site will present “Karl Lagerfeld Paris”, a line more “creative”, more expensive (between 300 and 1,500 euros) but with the same signature, which will be produced and distributed in the fall of 2012 by the Italian Ittierre. The focus will be on accessories (bags, gloves, shoes, jewelry, watches), M. Righi considering that the market should, by four or five years, exceed the loan-to-wear.
The existing men’s line, “Lagerfeld” more conventional and is sold mainly in Europe, will remain under license. The brand also plans to open late 2012 shops around “the world of Karl” offering different lines of the brand but also books, music and various objects chosen by the designer.