Target Comes to Melrose Place
Target is, of course, well known for persuading designers to turn their skills--and publicity-generating ability--to its mass market. The latest twist, as explained in this report is to open full-blown, but temporary, boutiques like this "pop up" Paul & Joe store on Melrose Place in L.A. My niece Rachel and I hit it on July 29, the day Moore's story ran, and it was packed with women eager to buy discount-priced clothes in a non-discount environment. Many didn't want to wait in the long lines for dressing rooms and turned the anteroom to the curtained-off changing spaced into a sort of Lohmann's communal dressing area.
Is paying for temporary retail space worth it? That depends on the cost, of course, and also on whether the promise of a boutique helps sign the designer in the first place. The prices aren't any higher in the special space, and the Paul & Joe boutique doesn't sell the everyday items that account for most of Target's revenue (and to which its designer products drive traffic). The Melrose Place store certainly helped generate publicity in Los Angeles, but everything else I've seen on the Paul & Joe line emphasized the options available everywhere else--ordinary Target stores and the GO International section of the Target website