• Women's Wear Daily, Monday, September 10, 2007 11:46 AM

The nationwide launch of Simply Vera Vera Wang at Kohl's last week was low-key at best--but sources close to the retailer say sales are trending four times ahead of expectations, and claim the line is selling five times better than Chaps, which Kohl's launched in 2005.

The retailer ran ads for the collection in Vogue, In Style and Cosmopolitan, trumpeted Simply Vera on its Web site, hung banners over store entrances and received plenty of editorial play, but crowds never materialized. At the Nanuet, N.Y. store, for example, only four women visited the Simply Vera display during a two-hour period Sunday morning.

Michael Stone, president and CEO of the Beanstalk Group, a brand-licensing agency, believes Simply Vera will resonate with customers. "It's not a tired brand that's being reintroduced at mass," he says, but a "vibrant, robust fashion brand that's living upstairs and succeeding upstairs."

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