NEWSTaylor Swift to Launch Sundress Line
Jan. 29 2009, Published 9:34 a.m. ET
Taylor Swift is branching out--into fashion.
The 19-year-old country singer, whose album Fearless has topped the charts for the last seven weeks, has teamed up with Jones Apparel Group's L.E.I. brand to be the face of its spring and fall ad campaign, to be sold exclusively at Wal-Mart.
But that's not all.
Swift will also be launching her own line of sundresses--a one-season collection of colorful cotton spring dresses called L.E.I. Sundresses by Taylor Swift, which will go on sale at Wal-Mart on Feb. 1.
"We looked at partnering with many different people," said Jack Gross, group chief executive officer for the jeanswear division at Jones. "Since we are partners with Wal-Mart, it was very important for us to find someone with a good reputation and someone who we didn’t have to be afraid of getting any sort of bad press."
Swift, he said, seemed like a perfect match.
"She is so famous, but really so grounded," he said. "We liked her immediately."
Swift's line will offer three different styles — a tie-back dress, printed tie-back dress and printed tier dress. Two additional styles are planned for a March 1 delivery. All dresses will retail for $14.
"It was very important for me to create cute, affordable dresses," Swift said. "Especially in these hard times, making expensive dresses just doesn’t make any sense."
Swift said she plans to wear the dresses throughout the spring and summer, as well as when she’s on tour.
"These are my favorite things to wear," she said. "When we were designing them, we had so many ideas to work from, and it came down to creating dresses that I would wear. If I couldn’t see myself wearing them, I wasn’t interested in making them."
And as for Wal-Mart, Swift said she is truly a dedicated shopper.
"I go to Wal-Mart all the time," she added. "The one in my hometown of Hendersonville, Tenn., is open 24 hours, so I go there a lot to buy DVDs and stuff like that."
