On Monday, it was revealed that the company that owns Ivanka Trump's eponymous fashion label has been reselling items from her clothing line with a different designer tag. G-III Apparel Group has admitted to relabeling pieces from Trump's line with the tag of Adrienne Vittadini Studio and reselling them to Stein Mart, a chain that has nearly 300 stores across America, without the knowledge of Ivanka Trump and the Trump organization, Business of Fashion reported.
“G-III accepts responsibility for resolving this issue, which occurred without the knowledge or consent of the Ivanka Trump organization,” a representative for G-III, which manufactures and distributes Trump's line via a licensing agreement, told BoF. But, it sounds like the mislabeling was a mistake: “G-III has already begun to take corrective actions, including facilitating the immediate removal of any mistakenly labelled merchandise from its customer. The Ivanka Trump brand continues to grow and remains very strong.” (Refinery29 was provided with the same statements by G-III representatives when reached for comment.)
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Though there's no word on whether or not the motivations for the tag swap were to lighten stock of Trump's clothing line — or to increase profits, even — for now, Stein Mart's CEO D. Hunt Hawkins said the relabelling was not politically motivated. "We’ve had both labels for a while. We may see more Adrienne Vittadini in the short term. I’ve had an equal number of customers say that they don’t want and do want the Ivanka Trump merchandise in the store. If we get it, we get," Hawkins explained.
To clarify, Adrienne Vittadini is its own label and is in no way affiliated with Ivanka Trump or the adviser's former clothing empire. (It's currently sold at several department and discount clothing stores including Macy's, Dillards, Lord & Taylor, Bon-Ton, and the aforementioned Stein Mart.) It's speculated that the apparel group that owns the Ivanka Trump label may not want the brand to be associated with a discounted status, which could have been part of the reasoning behind the label change, though the group claims it was all just an accident.
Earlier this year, Refinery29 reported of increased sales for Ivanka Trump's clothing brand under the new leadership of Abigail Klem, a registered Democrat who took over the business in January, just before President Donald J. Trump was sworn into office. Klem was the brand’s first hire nearly four years ago, and served as chief brand officer before becoming president of the label.
Representatives for Ivanka Trump's brand had no comment regarding the situation.