What Is a Diffusion Line & Why Should You Care That They’re Disappearing?

This coming spring, your favorite upscale department store is going to look a little different.

Gone will be Donna Karan from the fancy “designer” floor. Shoppers after a hit of her specific flavor of New York City cool will have to head to DKNY. Once known as Donna Karan’s secondary, or “diffusion” line, DKNY is now the company’s sole brand. Karan, the person, has also left the company. Maxwell Osborne and Dao-Yi Chow, the guys behind street wear-inspired label Public School, now design DKNY. Their first iteration debuted on the catwalk during the past New York Fashion Week and will be available in stores in early 2016.

Marc Jacobs, too, is transforming. You may or may not have realized it, since it’s hard to discern by just looking at the label, but most of Marc Jacobs-branded merchandise currently falls under the “Marc x Marc Jacobs” moniker. Launched in 2000, “MxMJ” is a more affordable alternative to the clothes shown on the runway. However, starting next year, MxMJ is going away. Instead, every piece of clothing sold by the company, whether it’s $200 or $2,000, will simply be Marc Jacobs, no qualifier necessary.

This streamlined approach to branding is trendier than kick flares. It started a couple of years ago, when Dolce & Gabbana discontinued its slightly lower priced D&G line. More recently, Victoria Beckham announced the end of her “Victoria” dress collection. And this week, Burberry said that its many, many labels – from Burberry Brit to Burberry Prorsum – would now just be called Burberry.

So, what gives? And why should you care about the mono-branding of fashion?

To understand where we are, it might be good to understand where we’re coming from. Diffusion lines really took off in the 1990s, when designers were eager to cash in on the fame and admiration that came via their runway collections. Catwalk clothes, also known as ready-to-wear, are expensive, which means their market is finite. To capitalize, they began creating second-tier collections. The goal was to “diffuse” the big ideas from the main collection and create simpler, more commercial looks that a broader group of people could appreciate and afford, while still maintaining creative control.

Also known as bridge lines, diffusion lines worked for a while. But then this thing called “contemporary fashion” happened. Brands like Alexander Wang and 3.1 Phillip Lim, which might have opted to make crazy-expensive clothes in another era, chose to price their main collections to compete with bridge lines. While these clothes are by no means cheap, most items tend to cost less than $1,000. What makes them special, though, is that they have a point of view that is as strong as any expensive ready-to-wear line. “There is so much competition in the marketplace today,” says Pam Danziger, founder of insights firm Unity Marketing. “Customers are confused and diffusion lines only enhance that confusion. Today, they can move on to another brand that is more straight forward about its value proposition.”

The rise of the contemporary floor in the early aughts coincided with the introduction of fast fashion to the U.S. market. Suddenly, stores like H&M (from Sweden) and Zara (Spain) were shilling cheap-chic takes on runway looks, making it easier for shoppers to try trends without spending a fortune.

Those two shifts in the market led to the current situation: In 2015, an item of clothing needs to feel special, whether it’s a $150 blouse from J.Crew or a $15,000 blazer from Balmain. Watered-down versions of main collections just don’t cut it.

If a designer is going to create a diffusion line now, it’s to market the brand rather than sustain it. Limited edition high-low collaborations, such as Balmain for H&M or Joseph Altuzarra for Target, are good examples of that. “For the future, I think we will continue to see brands try limited-edition introductions of lower-end lines with brands like Target and H&M,” Danziger says. “But the pull back on trying to push too much product under different brand names will probably continue.”

So what does this mean for you, dear shopper? The hope is that you’ll be excited to buy things because the clothes will be more interesting, and the labels less confusing. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet, right? Well, that’s what these brands are betting on.

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