Walmart Teams Up With Ellen DeGeneres for EV1 Clothing Collection

[demmiblue]

Walmart (wmt)is borrowing a page from Target’s (tgt)playbook to rev up its apparel sales.

The retailer said in a blog post on Wednesday that it has lined up television star Ellen DeGeneres to launch a collection of casual clothes in September in a bid to spruce up its clothing selection. Walmart, the world’s largest retailer, is primarily known for basic clothing presented in a no-frills way, rather than celebrity collaborations of the kind that has made Target a major apparel destination.

The DeGeneres tie-up, called EV1 and consisting of some 60 items costing $30 or less to start, comes amid a number of moves by Walmart to be a bigger player in the world of fashion. Walmart recently added an e-commerce page to its web site for HBC’s (hbc) Lord & Taylor department store chain, as it looks to showcase higher end brands. Walmart has also bought retailers like ModCloth, Bonobos, and Moosejaw in the past two years to expand its assortment for middle class customers. EV1 items will also be sold at roughly 2,300 stores, or half its fleet.

“We’ve been hard at work transforming the fashion experience on walmart.com,” Denise Incandela, head of fashion for Walmart’s U.S. digital operations, wrote in the blog post.

http://fortune.com/2018/08/15/walmart-ellen-degeneres-ev1/

Sigh.

[lark]

1. Will never shop at Walmart.

My husband worked there and they are a lying scumbag organization. So glad he got out of there!