Is the Fashion Industry Bravo’s Newest Channel?

From The Los Angeles Times:

Bravo is now expanding into the fashion retail space like never before, by launching co-branded handbags with Kooba that will be featured in the upcoming series “NYC Prep,” debuting June 23.

It’s a new step for the network, Jennifer Turner, Bravo and Oxygen Media’s VP of Licensing and Strategic Partnerships, told me on the phone this morning. “It’s our first foray into the area of fashion, in creating the Fashion by Bravo brand, and Kooba was the perfect partner to gain legitimacy and offer something special.” The bags, labeled “Kooba Exclusively for Fashion by Bravo,” will be sold for $595 at Bravotv.com and Kooba.com. (Other partnerships will follow in the fashion and food categories, Turner said.)

“By Bravo moving into the fashion space and creating these products, essentially we now have a marriage of two businesses, the media and TV businesses and the fashion retail business,” Turner said. “Those are two different business models and timelines. I don’t think we can have the fashion industry change how they are doing things, but as we try to become more experienced and branch out into fashion, it will require more of a collaboration and meshing of how those businesses work.”

Anyone who watches Bravo on a semi-regular basis can hardly be surprised by this aggressive movement towards retail. Even beyond the obvious - Top Chef Swanson broth centered challenges, for example - companies have long been paying to have the Real Housewives saunter into their stores, swipe up some undoubtedly comped merchandise, and skip away as the cameras zoom in on their logo-laden shopping bags.

The question is: in this brave new recessionista world of ours, will consumers pay more for television driven items? Or is it possible that such highly visible products and labels are the only ones that stand a chance of survival?

Photo credit: L.A. Times