Liz Claiborne Scores Key Designer, Isaac Mizrahi (LIZ, TGT, WMT)

Liz Clairborne Inc. (NYSE: LIZ) has made a key hire that might get some notice or kudos if it was a different environment.  It appears that Liz has poached away Isaac Mizrahi from Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT).  This line of Isaac Mizrahi will still be available at select target stores and target.com through the end of 2008.

Isaac Mizrahi is actually a trendy brand that has been quite popular, and it may have been one of a few dozen things that had helped Target make inroads in its war against Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) on the fashion side.  Speaking of which, they should have done the work to pursue him.

Normally we’d say this might be a great fit for Liz.  Actually we think it is a great fit considering how the performance has been over there.  There’s just one small problem.  We are already in a recession and now it seems that the only big question is how deep or how bad it will get. 

Also, as this clothing line is available at Target through the end of the year this will take some time to filter out for Liz.  As every other retailer is in the soup, it’s just hard to get excited about anything retail today.

Congratulations Liz, but we’ll throw you a party maybe later in the year.

Jon C. Ogg
January 15, 2008