Saks' Fancy Footwork

Saks Fifth Avenue has a few tricks up its silken sleeves for getting customers into its stores this fall. And in the current economic climate, upscale department stores are thinking outside the box. They have to.

Because a number of scenes in the upcoming fall film release The Women, a remake of the famed Claire Booth Luce film of 1939, this time written and directed by Murphy Brown's Diane English, take place at the perfume counter of Saks, the store is doing a special cosmetics promotion with makeup artist Francois Nars, who based one of his most famous Nars nailcolors on a nailcolor out of both films - "Jungle Red." One of the last lines of both films is, "I've grown claws, mother - Jungle Red!!"

Nars will offer a Saks exclusive: a special boxed set in conjunction with the new movie (which stars Meg Ryan, Eva Mendes, Jada Pinkett Smith and Annette Bening) of a first-run "Jungle Red" lipstick, lipgloss and the already existing nailcolor, on sale starting in early September, two weeks before the release of the movie. It's a limited edition, and will be available for about six weeks, till it runs out.

Meanwhile, the NY Saks flagship has seen bigger numbers since it redid its designer shoe floor, naming it "10022" and signifying it with its own zip code. Shoes continue to be big sellers, even with increased prices due to import leather prices and the Euro--and Saks Beverly Hills is responding. The WIlshire Boulevard store is also redoing its shoe department--or as they say in Bev Hills, it's getting a little "lift:"

it will have pale mettalic walls, jewel tone sofas, increased square footage, and the shoes will be displayed on glass and antique mirrors like works of art. Along with bestsellers Christian Louboutin, Chanel, Prada, YSL, Jimmy Choo and Guiseppe Zanotti, Saks will add Givenchy shoes, and new footwear designers Gianvito Rossi and Jonathan Kelsey.

The also named "10022 Shoes" department will open in late August, with a big Bev Hills-style soiree to follow in late September.

If you build them--The Women will come.

by Merle Ginsberg