Lady LUX

Juicy Couture founders Pamela Skaist-Levy and Gela Nash-Taylor are hoping their luck will hold a second time around. The best friends are tackling a new line, Skaist-Taylor, to be released in February in time for the fall fashion scene and to feature items the two are “obsessed with,” reported WWD.

“We are California-eccentric,” Nash-Taylor said to WWD. “The line is autobiographical. It’s kind of what we’re into right now. There’s a real joy in the fact that Pam and I are entrepreneurs. We always have been. It feels so right and so good to be doing what we love to do. That is, creating things that we want to wear, that we’re into right now, that feel authentic to us.”

Since its inception in 1996, Juicy Couture has stood for the laidback California lifestyle. Now boasting customers such as Jennifer Lopez, Madonna and Britney Spears, the label – and its famed velour tracksuit –hit $48 million in sales by 2003. The founders made a tidy profit that year when they sold to Liz Claiborne Inc., and by 2008, the business was making $600 million per year. Once the duo sold to Liz Claiborne, the brand scored a place at Bloomingdales, Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Nordstrom. The two designers pocketed a great deal of cash during the earn-out phase before walking away in January 2010.

And now it is time for an encore.

Nash-Taylor is keeping slightly closemouthed about the new project. “We don’t want to talk specifically about the collection because we’re not showing until February. We will show in New York,” she said.

Skaist-Levy, however, disclosed that the collection, priced $175 to $3,000, will include a broad range of items, from T-shirts to outerwear and knits. “We’re creating pieces that we feel are standouts and that you have to have,” she said.

One of the most crucial elements of the collection will be its bright colors. “Color is who we are. There is no doubt about it,” Skaist-Levy reported.

For the cofounders, the collection marks the achievement of a dream they have held since leaving Claiborne. “We started working on [the collection] the minute we were released,” Nash-Taylor said. “We dream about fashion. We knew what we wanted to do in our heads before it became a reality.”

Juicy Couture’s phenomenal success has taken the fashion world by surprise, but the designers are playing it cool this time around.

“We created the number-one fragrance. We built a brand that changed the way people dressed. But we didn’t set out to do that. We just set out to make clothes we wanted, and we’re going to do that again,” said Skaist-Levy.

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