EDITORIAL: The sour smell of success

OPINION:

It’s not necessarily true that “any publicity is good publicity,” but Ivanka Trump might think so. Her fashion line was famously dropped by several department stores, and some of the many foes of her father organized a boycott of her goods. The result is a remarkable spike in sales — to near record levels, according to her company.

The brand, in fact, placed 11th on a list tracking online sale items from more than 12,000 retailers and designers. The tracking agency, Lyst, says the brand jumped 346 percent in just the past month. “Since the beginning of February, they were some of the best performing weeks in the history of the brand,” Abigail Klem, the company president, tells Fox News. That’s good news not only for the first daughter, but for her father as well, since everything seems to be about him.

In October, Nordstrom, citing poor sales, cut ties with the fashionista. Nordstrom was joined by T.J. Maxx, Amazon.com, Zappos, Bloomingdale’s, Lord & Taylor, Neiman Marcus, Dillard’s, DSW, Macy’s, Marshall’s and Saks Off Fifth as targets of a boycott organized by the sore losers of the November election. Retailers, like deer and rabbits, are always easily frightened, and Neiman Marcus responded by halting online sales of the Trump jewelry line. T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s suspended advertising of her clothing.

When Kellyanne Conway, a senior aide to President Trump, defended Ivanka’s duds and accessories, saying that the clothes were quality garments and Americans should buy them, more politics spiked fashion. Critics argued that the administration has no business endorsing business interests, not even the business of a father’s daughter. Nevertheless, Mrs. Conway’s advice didn’t hurt. 

“For several different retailers Ivanka Trump was a top performer online,” the brand’s spokeswoman says, “and in some of the categories it was the [brand’s] best performance ever. A lot of people support Ivanka, even across both political parties.” The publicity revealed to many shoppers that Ivanka had a shoe line, and a handbag line, and they bought those items, too.

Ivanka’s perfumes have become top sellers on Amazon.com. One of them sold all of its stock. Customer reviews online show that many of the buyers were persuaded to buy by the controversy, and many of them wanted to show support for Ivanka.

“Whether this is a long-term trend,” says the spokesman for the tracking firm Lyst, “we can’t say. We’ve tracked the sales from March thus far and if [such] sales continue, we’ll see an 8 percent increase in relation to January sales, but nothing as large as February. But it’s still stronger than in January.”

The boycotters are learning what boycotters nearly always learn, that such blustering activism usually cuts two ways. Lyst finds that the boycott, such as it may be, has not dramatically affected Ivanka’s total sales. “There was also another movement to support the brand,” the spokesman says, “and that’s definitely what we’re seeing here.”

The boycotters set out to call attention to Ivanka’s goods, and succeeded beyond expectations. Live by the rant, die by the rant.

“An earlier version of the editorial ‘The sour smell of success’ incorrectly stated a 460 percent hike in online sales of Ivanka Trump’s clothing line. The 460 percent actually corresponds to a rise in online searches for pantsuits during the campaign season, apparently due to Hillary Clinton’s preference for the garb. The Ivanka Trump Collection, meanwhile, continues to grow. It’s currently sold in more than 800 stores in the United States and on track to be sold in another 200. The Washington Times regrets the error.”