A
Where do you buy your clothes? Well, most of us shop at traditional retailers with increasingly frequent trios to discount stores and Internet. And most of the super-rich and trendy buy directly from designers like Gucci, Armani and Chanel. But lately their shopping habits and ours have been converging. Bonita Carol reports that many of the fashion elite are coming out of the closet and going straight to K Mart. Take a peek inside fashion editor Christy Ferrel's closet, and you'll find couture side by side with K Mart.
B
Fashion reporter Jerry Agins calls the trend "cheapskate chic": the regent fashionable wearing Sears shoes, Wal-Mart pants and Target sweaters, proudly pairing them with designer labels. The whole trend of "cheapskate chic" is a lot of affluent people are now shopping differently, and they're just like everybody, they're decorating their homes, they're spending a lot of time in stores like K Mart and Wal-Mart. And you're in there once or twice a week, so while you're in there picking up paper towels and toilet paper and toothpaste, you happen to kind of wander about the fashion aisles.
C
A watershed event occurred when Sharon Stone wore that Gap T-shirt at the Oscars. She looked terrific. Everybody wondered what she had on and later they found out that she had on that $ 22 Gap turtleneck and that really resonated with a lot of consumers. Stores like the Gap, Sears, K Mart and target are taking full advantage, offering fashion mavens that perfect denim jacket or pair of jeans, T-shirt or little black dress or top to make them match with high fashion.
D
Retail Watcher said mass merchants are benefiting greatly from this "cheapskate chic" trend. In 1998 mass retailers such as K Mart, Wal-Mart and Target accounted for 43% of all apparel sold. And that's up from 38% five years earlier. And these stores are stealing away customers from more upscale boutiques. In Target's case, or as the fashionably in crowd call it "Tarzhay", about 80% of its customers are college educated and have a medium household income of $ 47, 000. Maybe that's why Target's offering Kashmir sweaters for the first time.