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A bridge collection is a price classification in the apparel industry: secondary, lower-priced lines from designer names, positioned to bridge the gap between expensive designer clothing and the better and contemporary ranges below it. This page defines bridge collections and bridge lines and where they sit in the industry's price point system.
Bridge Collections Defined - Terms of Interest to the Fashion Industry
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A bridge clothing line is the price point below a “designer collection” but above a “better collection”. For example Dolce and Gabbana would be a designer line and the brand D&G would be that companies bridge line. G&G would retail at a lower price point than the Dolce and Gabbana collection. Additional examples of a bridge fashion collection includes Lauren by Ralph Lauren, Donna Karan's DKNY line, Emmanuel Ungaro's Emmanuel line and JOE for Joseph Abboud.
A "bridge" between better and designer. Bridge is usually the lower priced or secondary lines of fashion designers. Bridge products have the look of designer products but are made from less expensive fabrics and trim components. There is a large amount of competition in this apparel price range category because the garments are at a lower cost then the designer label but they have the similar brand recognition and possible prestige. In today’s world of fashion, just about every designer has a bridge line. When a popular designer notices that their audience for truly expensive clothes starts to shrink, designers seek salvation by creating their own secondary lines.
It's a word retailers coined to describe clothes priced to bridge the gap between expensive and moderate.
In the opinion of Apparel Search, the bridge market can get over saturated. As designers determine they are not growing as quickly as they had in the past with their designer collection, they feel that they must enter the bridge market. However, they may not be capable of creating “multiple” fantastic collections. They will sometimes face a sameness of the product. Often consumers are confronted with not enough differentiation as they may see in the designer market. Possibly, there is simply too much merchandise in bridge. At some times, more product than demand.
Comfort and fit are important criteria to the bridge customer. Many consumers in this price range are business professionals and need to be fashionable as well as comfortable in the work place.
Popular fashion designers want their bridge collections to have the same design sensibility as their higher-priced lines. This is one of the reasons that the collection is still fairly high priced and has exceptionally high quality. If the designer want to spin much farther from the designer collection, they have the option to create a collection in a lower classification such as better, contemporary, or moderate. You can learn more about the other collection category ranges at our Apparel Industry Price Points definition page.
Unlike some others, Isaac Mizrahi has presented his bridge line, Isaac, in a formal runway show.
CK Calvin Klein has developed a more sophisticated attitude as the designer has moved some of the sportier pieces into his CK Jeans line.
Many other designers have entered this collection classification. You are welcome to discuss your favorite bridge collections in the discussion area below. Share your thoughts, questions, or comments on the subject.
Written by ML at Apparel Search February 20, 2014.
You may want to also read about contemporary lines.
A bridge line lets a designer house sell to the customer who admires the main collection but cannot pay its prices, without discounting the main collection itself. The bridge line carries the designer's name and design language in less expensive fabrics and simpler construction, sold in better department stores rather than the designer's own boutiques. Done well, it recruits future customers for the main line and produces volume the flagship never could; done carelessly, it blurs the name's prestige, which is why houses guard which stores may carry the bridge line and how it is labeled.
For buyers and retailers the classification is practical information. A store's mix is planned by price point, and knowing that a line is a bridge collection tells the buyer its expected price range, its likely customer, and which neighboring lines it competes with on the rack. The term is one of a family of classifications — contemporary, better, moderate, budget — that together let the trade describe a garment's market position in a single word, and the price point definitions page linked from this entry defines the rest of the family.
A secondary, lower-priced line from a designer brand, created to bridge the gap between the designer's main collection and lower price points — better fabrics and construction than mass lines, at prices below the designer label itself.
Along the same level as contemporary, and below luxury and designer. The apparel industry price point definitions linked from the A section of this directory lay out the full ladder: luxury, designer, bridge and contemporary, better, moderate and budget.
A diffusion line is the close cousin — a secondary line by a designer house aimed at a younger or less affluent customer. This page also links onward to contemporary fashion collections, the neighboring classification.