JCPenney, the exclusive retailer of Liz Claiborne since 2009, is celebrating the fashion brand’s 50th birthday by launching a special 80-piece Liz Claiborne capsule collection on May 8.
“This will capture Liz’s fearless design ethos,” said Michelle Wlazlo, JCPenney’s chief executive officer.
Among the items in the collection: power blazers, versatile pleated trousers suitable to wear from the office to dinner, statement sweater vests layered for various occasions and A-line skirts engineered for “real bodies and real moments.”
All of the items are designed for mixing and matching, offered in Penney’s inclusive size range and priced under $100. Included are the reds, blacks, whites and navy colors that Claiborne loved. “She always had on her iconic black or red glasses and she always had a red manicure. That’s why this color palette was chosen,” Wlazlo said.
“This is exactly what Liz wanted when she started her company — affordable, classically designed fashion that wasn’t throwaway fashion and that you could feel confident in,” Wlazlo said.
Liz Claiborne photographed in 1979.
Dustin Pittman
The capsule collection will be sold in all 640 of Penney’s department stores, on jcpenney.com and will be promoted on social media and through email. The collection is in addition to the regular Liz Claiborne assortment carried by Penney’s.
“It’s just mind-boggling what Liz did,” said Wlazlo. “Think about it, in 1976 for a female founder to launch what became a Fortune 500 company and just change everything about how women dressed and how they saw themselves.
“What’s even more amazing is that here we are in 2026, on the 50th anniversary, and the impact of the brand is still there. We see that when people come to buy Liz Claiborne clothing at JCPenney. This is a very important brand for us. It’s fascinating to watch how strong this brand has been year after year after year, and it’s not just because the products are great. It’s because there is this understanding of what Liz really meant for not just female founders and executives, but for the fashion industry.”
Wlazlo said Claiborne democratized fashion and drove versatility so that women could dress powerfully for whatever work they were doing and do it in a way that felt they didn’t have to fit into a stereotype or the typical way they had been dressing for work.
“She really was one of the leaders in separates and how you mix pieces together, and how women really wanted to dress with comfort, quality, style and versatility,” Wlazlo said. “She wore the clothes and was proud of them. She just knew the woman’s body and the versatility of how to dress women in her signature style.”
Aside from apparel, Penney’s sells Liz Claiborne home, shoes, accessories and fragrance.
Liz Claiborne, who passed away in 2007, became a name to watch in the late 1950s. Her experience designing across sportswear and couture laid the groundwork for the namesake label she cofounded with her husband Arthur Ortenberg in 1976. Central to her philosophy was bringing quality style in casual and career clothes at an accessible price into women’s closets. By the time her namesake got off the ground, she had already transformed the rising “career clothes” category she would eventually dominate. It was always about the clothes for Claiborne, who told WWD at the time that, “her business should reflect her taste and style, as an extension of a manner of living.”
“Liz Claiborne didn’t just build a company, she started a movement,” said Wlazlo. “She understood that confidence is every woman’s right, not something unobtainable beyond the few.”
From JCPenney’s Liz Claiborne capsule collection.
