Upscale fashion clicks with eBay

By Maureen Fan
Knight Ridder Newspapers

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The online auction house once thought of as a quick way to dump garage-sale castoffs is now the place to buy and sell Jimmy Choo shoes, Salvatore Ferragamo alligator handbags and Etro coats. And this season, eBay is taking its fashion credentials further — it will auction garments straight off the New York runways from hot young design team Proenza Schouler, six months before they hit the stores.

It all points to eBay's growing role behind the runways in the world of fashion, as a marketplace and as a no-longer-unlikely source of inspiration for some designers. With sales of $1.8 billion last year in clothes, shoes and accessories, the auction site is already all the buzz in fashion circles.

"I think it's genius because you can have the clothing before it arrives in all the stores. If you're a fashionista, you want things before anyone else," said Rosemary Ponzo, 42, a film and TV stylist. "I have a lot of friends that are selling their vintage clothes, like Gaultier from the 80s and pre-owned furs."

The Proenza Schouler auction (www.ebay.com/proenzaschouler) features 50 garments from this year's spring and fall collections and last year's fall collection. The fall 2004 clothes were first shown at Olympus Fashion Week this month in New York, and they won't hit stores for another six months.

Proenza Schouler is the second design team to sell straight onto eBay, following Narciso Rodriguez, who sold a much smaller lot of clothing last September.

The San Jose auction house was also a small sponsor of a show by "Sex and the City" costume designer Patricia Fields at Los Angeles Fashion Week. EBay says it's in talks with other designers but won't name them.

"So many people have approached me this week — fashionistas, executives, people with closets and boxes full of stuff," Constance White, style director for eBay and a former fashion journalist with Full Frontal Fashion TV and Elle magazine, said earlier this month.

For eBay, the online trunk shows lend glamour and burnish a reputation that is already going upscale, with Prada, Kate Spade and Louis Vuitton among the most frequent sale items.

"I think they're trying to let people know eBay is fashionable," said Hollywood stylist Phillip Bloch, who writes a fashion column for eBay.

And for the designers, eBay — with 95 million registered users — has become another way to reach shoppers in Middle America or markets where their clothes are not in local stores.
 
"It's innovative. Obviously it's something that will help them (Proenza Schouler) make money," said Ed Filipowski, partner in a PR powerhouse that handles Marc Jacobs, Anna Sui and Zac Posen. "EBay is a massive audience. I wish I had thought of it."

Of course, a massive audience can also lead to a mass brand — and some of the most-established designers might be reluctant to run the risk of losing their image of elite and exclusive. White acknowledged that some fashion designers are unsure whether to embrace eBay, but hopes that eBay will eventually become just one more way to build a brand.

EBay's presence was already clear at Fashion Week, on and off the catwalks. Patrick Robinson, designer of Perry Ellis' women's wear, found antique rhinestone pins designed by 1950s jewelry designer Hattie Carnegie on eBay to accessorize his show. Robinson also found a vintage scarf from one of Perry Ellis' original collections and used the button print pattern for a yellow silk skirt he unveiled.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company