Blair Corp.’s alliance with actress Jane Seymour appears to be paying off handsomely. In February, the Warren, PA-based multititle catalog company’s Crossing Pointe division launched the Jane Seymour Signature Collection, a 24-page women’s apparel spin-off.
More than 750,000 copies of the catalog were mailed to customers who had purchased Jane Seymour apparel from the Crossing Pointe catalog as well as to demographically appropriate prospects. “This is Crossing Pointe’s entrée into the upscale market,” says Crossing Pointe general manager Lew Shapiro, adding that the new title’s demographic compares with those of such other women’s apparel catalogers as J. Jill and Isabella Bird. According to their data cards, the average annual income of both J. Jill’s and the Isabella Bird’s customers is $75,000; those of Crossing Pointe’s customers is $50,000.
The 93-year-old Blair had launched the women’s fashion catalog Crossing Pointe in 2000 to target younger buyers; it introduced its exclusive Jane Seymour Signature Collection clothing line via the Crossing Pointe book and Website in January 2002. Blair in August started the JaneSeymour.com Website, and in January, the Jane Seymour Signature Collection debuted on The Crossing Pointe Fashion Show on ShopNBC.
Crossing Pointe will continue to include a 16-page Jane Seymour apparel section within its 84-page catalog, which is mailed to more than 22 million consumers. “Like any business, I expect some cannibalization between the Jane [Seymour Signature Collection] and Crossing Pointe catalogs, but nothing that would point to us not doing it,” Shapiro says. “There’s a tremendous upside here.”
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