Jeans Therapy

"I don't even look at Liz now," Davis says. "I probably haven't looked -- I mean really looked -- in two years."

In 2003, Liz Claiborne hired Ostell, who had been the womenswear designer for Nicole Farhi, a high-end British sportswear firm. He worked on the now defunct line Realities, which was a collection of basics under the Liz Claiborne banner. In 2005, he took on responsibility for all Liz Claiborne ready-to-wear. That same year, Thomas-Graham, who previously was chairman of CNBC, was named group president of Liz Claiborne Inc., with the revitalization of the flagship as project No. 1. Each day, her personal wardrobe of Liz Claiborne separates -- from pencil skirts to leather blazers -- serve as a visual news release on the state of the brand. (Earlier this year, "Project Runway's" Tim Gunn was hired as chief creative officer for the corporation to help juice up all the brands.)

"Liz had strayed away from what it was known for," Ostell says. It had become a much more casual line."

Now it has a new advertising campaign that stars a quietly fashionable and almost glamorous 35-year-old model who is also a mother. (The average age of the brand's customer is 41. Its petite customers skew a little older, and plus-size ones are younger.) It has reintroduced Liz Claiborne Collection, a pricier line fueled by trends and spiced with limited edition pieces. It will be sold through larger branches of department stores such as Macy's and on the company Web site.

For fall 2007, the Liz Claiborne Collection includes leather jackets, velvet eyelet tops and a lot less emphasis on pastel colors. There have been upgrades in materials, too -- shifting from PVC handbags to leather ones, for instance. For spring, an embroidered silk georgette dress is $199, a short trench coat is $159 and boot-cut pants with a lower rise are $89.

The brand isn't trying to be trendy. That's not what its customers want. It's just attempting to reclaim a reputation for being contemporary. "I never really think about going after that one customer who is a clotheshorse," Ostell says. "It's a slippery path to go down. You have to think of who the customer is and be true to that."

Retail consultants have identified a sweet spot for which Liz Claiborne should aim. Prices in the designer market have jumped -- a starter designer handbag is now about $1,500. Low-end brands such as Target and H&M have turned their attention to trendy merchandise. There may be room in the middle for clothes that are merely stylish and modestly priced.

"Liz has had such inconsistencies. They need to get to the core of what they really want to do and forget the gimmicks," says Lori Holliday Banks, a trend analyst at the Tobe Report, a retail consultancy.

"Customers want consistency and authenticity."

In company surveys, women in their 30s and older reach back to Jackie Onassis and Audrey Hepburn when asked to name a fashion icon. They are not listing modern starlets.

"I think about my friend Nina: an ex-banker living in the U.K. with three boys. She's married and 41," Ostell says. "I always think of her as being my customer. She's fashionable. She looks great. She goes to the gym, but she's not a stick-thin supermodel. She wants to look fashionable but appropriate. . . . Women are not wanting to look foolish. They don't want to look like mutton dressed as lamb."

That woman, Ostell says, is not going to "trust some airy-fairy designer up there in the clouds."