Wal-Mart Stores, whose shoppers tend to skip the clothing department and head straight for a cheap bottle of laundry detergent, is creating its own line of urban fashions as part of a wide-ranging effort to shed its reputation for dowdy designs.
The new clothing line, called Metro 7, will test the style appetite of the average Wal-Mart woman, offering sheer printed tunics with beaded necklines, distressed jeans and a silk camisole with sequined lace.
Karen Stuckey, senior vice president of product development, called Metro 7 "ultrastylish, trendy, modern," with a "body-conscious fit."
PHOTO: WAL-MART/THE NEW YORK TIMES
And, of course, it is cheap. Complete outfits, including tops and bottoms, can be put together for under US$35.
The 100 percent silk camisole is priced at US$14.99.
Metro 7 is the first new product line to result from what Wal-Mart describes as an unprecedented company survey of its shoppers; 6,000 consumers were queried to determine holes in Wal-Mart's merchandise offerings.
The biggest hole, executives found, was fashionable apparel, which Wal-Mart consumers can find at competitors like Target and JC Penney.
"The customer is in our stores already, but we are not meeting her fashion needs," Stuckey said.
As part of the initiative, Wal-Mart has opened a trend-spotting office in Manhattan, whose staff members were formerly with Nautica and the modern furniture company West Elm, and has taken out advertisements in the fashion bible Vogue.
For now at least, Wal-Mart will sell Metro 7 in 500 urban-area stores across the country. "Traditional" stores -- a Wal-Mart designation -- will receive the line next spring.
The fashions fit with Wal-Mart's strategy of expanding into urban markets. While Wal-Marts blanket rural America, the chain's record of building stores within city limits is mixed, with opponents foiling proposed outlets in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York.
To enhance Metro 7's image, it will even have a spokesmodel: Dayanara Torres, a former Miss Universe, who is featured in one promotional photograph wearing a Metro 7 brand tunic and jeans while leaning provocatively against a yellow sports car.
Wal-Mart already sells several of its own clothing lines, including George, a contemporary collection of preppy shirts, skirts and pants for men and women that Wal-Mart inherited when it acquired a British retailer, Asda. But George, introduced in fall 2001, did not prove the early success Wal-Mart had hoped.
"We did not have a marketing program to talk to the customer about it," said John Fleming, Wal-Mart's chief marketing officer and a former top executive at Target.
To prevent Metro 7 from encountering that fate, Wal-Mart will mount a broad advertising campaign including local newspapers and national magazines, Fleming said. Metro 7 will put Wal-Mart's clothing in direct competition with Target, whose clothing lines, created by designers like Isaac Mizrahi, have become desirable brands in their own right.
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