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Bay area is a new home to high end

No more driving across the state when you really need to plunk down $1,500 for a handbag as two retailers bring Chanel to Tampa.

By MARK ALBRIGHT
Published April 26, 2006

TAMPA - In another landmark in the maturation of the Tampa Bay market for luxury goods, full-line Chanel boutiques will open in local Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue stores by summer.

Even though it's not one-of-a-kind couture, genuine Chanel ready-to-wear is fully capable of causing sticker shock. A Chanel woman's blouse goes for $655, a jacket $2,000 to $3,000 and a knit suit up to $6,000. Gucci premium denim jeans may go for about $500. Chanel gets $900.

Chanel's arrival also is a sign the Tampa Bay area's fashion sense has grown more sophisticated. Once, only a few independent local stores catered to the high-end carriage trade. Now all but the pickiest of the big-name chains and luxe brands are here in some form even though some designer shops maintain skimpy selections. While Saks or Neiman always could order Chanel for local customers, it was never stocked in the stores.

Tampa Bay's luxury market has been evolving rapidly since the opening of Saks in WestShore Plaza in 1998, which was followed in 2001 with the arrival of International Plaza that brought Tiffany, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, St. John Knits, Christian Dior and a handful of other designer boutiques. Gucci opened its first boutique there in 2005, but has yet to bring in its ready-to-wear apparel.

International Plaza has been trying to land Jimmy Choo, whose shoes are a Hollywood favorite. Neiman recently hosted a special sales event staged by Cartier as the luxe European jewelry retailer scouts the Florida market for more locations now that it has a store in Orlando and plans for one in Naples.

Chanel's coming to Tampa ends five years of lobbying the hard-to-get French fashion house that until now was only seen locally in cosmetics departments, a few jewelry and sunglass counters and at flea markets where vendors peddle counterfeit T-shirts with Chanel's double-C logo imprinted in gold.

Founded in Paris by the rebellious Gabrielle "CoCo" Chanel in 1909, her capricious but elegant style drove one of the most influential brands in fashion history. Chanel No. 5 was the first perfume to be marketed worldwide. She came up with the go-anywhere "little black dress." She also created the Chanel classic suit in the 1950s that featured a boxy jacket and knee-length wool skirt accented with bold trim, gold buttons, all of it accented by a fake pearl necklace.

Closely held today by two grandsons of the founding partners, Chanel's guiding spirit now is artistic director Karl Lagerfeld.

The company has always fiercely protected the value of its brand. To maintain prices, unsold leftover goods are destroyed so they never go on sale. The company fights an ever-escalating war against knockoff artists, most recently filing a federal suit in Tampa against a Land O'Lakes importer named Lucia Margarita Fairchild. She allegedly is linked to FantasticReplica.com, a Web site that on Tuesday was peddling fake Chanel leather goods for $88 to $218. A real Chanel handbag retails for about $1,500.

"Unfortunately, because of the Internet, counterfeits have become a growing and even more significant problem," said Stephen Gaffigan, a Fort Lauderdale attorney for Chanel. "These sites accept orders, then just drop ship fakes from Asia."

Chanel's expanded presence here also is a sign that executives at Neiman and Saks headquarters see enough Tampa Bay shoppers traveling to their stores elsewhere to buy Chanel that a Chanel upgrade can be justified.

"We're excited," said Linda Zipkin, a spokeswoman for Neiman's International Plaza store who began stocking Chanel handbags six weeks ago.

"This is a huge deal for us," said Heather Shaw, the new general manager at Saks.

The arrival of Chanel, however, underlines how new managers at Saks are trying to elevate that chain's game, which drifted both nationally and locally in recent years. Neiman's sales in Tampa roared well ahead of Saks since its arrival in 2001.

Now Saks is getting much more aggressive. The Tampa store just opened an Armani cosmetics boutique that is the only one of its kind on the Florida West Coast. On May 4, Saks will stage a product signing event with Jay Strongwater, a onetime jewelry designer whose elaborate ceramic, wood and metal picture frames and home decor items go for up to $12,000. Strongwater sold about $200,000 worth of merchandise at his last local appearance at Neiman two years ago.

Some of the Chanel handbags and ready-to-wear are trickling in at Neiman which plans to group it all in a Chanel store-within-a-store that opens this summer.

The Tampa Saks scored a bigger coup by also landing the U.S. premier of Chanel's fall ready-to-wear line in a May 25 private showing for about 100 select shoppers as the first stop on the collection's tour circuit.

Saks opens its own 2,000 square foot Chanel boutique May 25 that will carry handbags, accessories and ready-to-wear.

"We'll have it open if I have to build it myself," said Shaw, the Saks store manager.

Mark Albright can be reached at albright@sptimes.com or 727 893-8252.

[Last modified April 26, 2006, 01:23:06]