The future of “Juicy”-stamped asses may be on the line now that Juicy Couture founders Gela Nash-Taylor and Pamela Skaist-Levy have stepped down. Liz Claiborne, which bought the label in 2003, said their departure is in keeping with their contract. Yet why would they leave Claiborne’s most successful brand behind? Granted, that isn’t saying much since Claiborne has been tanking horribly for a while now, but Gela and Pamela say they just wanted to “bust out.” They’ve netted $200 million there so they may as well start taking risks.
“We stayed seven years, which is a long time,” Nash-Taylor said.
They have been working on a TV show, a movie and a book, Skaist-Levy said. “We’re super-creative girls. We want to bust out and do everything.”
By TV show, we’ll assume the Post means costuming Jersey Shore. And a book? Well, anyone can write a style guide by copying the most recent one that came out and plugging in different pictures and chapter titles, since from what we can tell they’re all basically the same. But a movie? We guess they’d be the perfect people to dream something up with characters like those in Mean Girls, who will overspend on anything popular without questioning WHY GOD WHY.
The Post suggests the two are leaving because the company just isn’t doing quite as well these days. Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale’s are cutting back on floor space for Juicy, according to the Post. The label’s sales also dipped 7.8 percent in the third quarter. Gela and Pamela are expected to stay on as creative consultants for the label while they busy themselves with fun new projects and, you know, cool themselves with fans made of money.
The two have since appeared “fat and happy,” and have been noticeably out of the office recently, according to one source, despite contractual obligations to oversee Juicy Couture’s day-to-day operations.
Oh. The employee who let that slip certainly isn’t bitter.
Liz’s juicy gossip [NYP]
