Kohl’s Corp. is getting dressed up.
The Menomonee Falls, Wis.-based department store chain has established dress shops in 700 of its locations and on Kohls.com. Merchants have been shopping the market for brand names to augment what’s been an over-reliance on proprietary labels, and the assortment displays a better balance of styles. It’s been weighted toward casual styles in seasons past, but now has been infused with social, occasion and career dresses.
In addition, the company has been testing prom and party styles in juniors at select locations.
“There’s been a significant evolution in dresses,” said Sarah Hagland, Kohl’s executive vice president and general merchandise manager for women’s. Kohl’s has worked to fill “the white space in occasion, career and social dresses,” Hagland said in an exclusive interview.
With the changes in place, “It’s been allowing us to have the kind of broad sweep, across any occasion, which we needed,” the Kohl’s executive said.
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Among the dress brands recently added: Andrew Marc for structured career looks; London Times; Betsey & Adam, and Harper Rose for special occasion styles in florals, chiffon and with feminine details, and on the contemporary and updated side, Taylor and Maison Tara are offered. Nanette Lapore and Nicole Miller dresses are offered as well.
“This is our first push into national-brand dresses. It’s a brand new strategy. We are working across the industry with key national brands,” said Hagland.
From only-at-Kohl’s brands — Draper James, Sonoma Goods for Life, Nine West, LC Lauren Conrad and Simply Vera Vera Wang — there’s “a wider, amplified assortment” of dresses, Hagland said.
The new dress areas, or “pads” as Hagland referred to them, have twice as many fixtures on the selling floor, 20 to 24 versus 12 previously, enabling Kohl’s to tell richer print and color stories with dresses. The category was relocated to the front of the store, adjacent to Nine West, Vera Vera Wang, and Lauren Conrad, and the dress shops sprung up beginning last March, following dealings with market brands as far back as October 2023, Hagland said.
“This is an amazing opportunity to get into what our customer was asking us for,” she said. “We really identified this as a white space. Kohl’s was not necessarily known as a dress destination.”
The strategy represents a degree of trading up for Kohl’s, with the national dress brands priced under $150, and the sweet spot at the $79.99, $89.99 and $99.99 price point. That compares to Kohl’s private label dresses priced for the most part under $60.
The strategy also reflects the bigger-picture Kohl’s — intensified efforts to reverse declining sales trends. In the first quarter of this year, net sales decreased 5.3 percent and comparable sales fell 4.4 percent. In 2023, net sales decreased 3.4 percent to $16.6 billion in sales; comparable sales declined 4.7 percent.
But Kohl’s is seeking $2 billion in additional sales volume over several years through brand additions and assortment changes in such areas as menswear as well as dresses, and via its Sephora and Babies R Us shops. Also, last March, Kohl’s unveiled a revamped home assortment marked by pumped-up previously underplayed presentations of wall art, botanicals, storage, frames, glass, ceramics, gifting and impulse items, as well as the introduction of the pet supply and lighting categories to the selling floor for the first time.
According to Hagland, selling best in dresses this season are florals, crepes, chiffons, feminine details like ruffles, thicker knit fabrications, pleats, color and prints. Linen has also been selling well. “We are starting to deliver some of that fall color palette right now,” including browns, teals, deep blues and merlot reds.
“Newness is continuing to flow in and the dress assortment is continuing to build through the early summer months,” Hagland mentioned.
As Nick Jones, Kohl’s chief merchandising and digital officer, said recently, “The main thrust is about bringing in newness and fresh goods more frequently, having an overall broader assortment, and appealing to a broader customer.”
A look from London Times at Kohl’s.
