Style & Design: Designer Dresses for Less

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nks to Karl Lagerfeld, things just got a little bit sweeter for shoppers with champagne tastes and a beer budget. Lagerfeld, 65—the design genius behind Chanel, Fendi and his own Lagerfeld Gallery line—is hooking up with Swedish retailer Hennes & Mauritz (H&M). Lagerfeld is the latest prestige designer to join the "masstige" trend, in which brand names like Isaac Mizrahi and Todd Oldham dream up affordable products for mass-market chains.

The 30-piece Lagerfeld for H&M collection, a one-time deal, will hit the racks at 800 H&M stores in 19 countries in mid-November. The line will include such basics as jeans, T shirts and sweaters at prices ranging from $2 to $130. Lagerfeld points with pride to one turtleneck in particular. Although he designed it for women, he notes that it's something everyone can wear and plans to get one for himself.

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"He's a very good designer," says Margareta van den Bosch, head of design at H&M. "I've always admired him. He's one of the names that came up first. I think he has a way of looking at fashion that's very commercial."

Lagerfeld, who previously designed products for the French mass-market chain La Redoute, follows the relatively new trend of high-end designers' dipping down into popular-priced retail. In the 1970s Halston shocked the fashion world when he sold his name to the U.S. department store J.C. Penney and launched a less expensive collection. Next month Oscar de la Renta will introduce a new moderate line, O Oscar, that will retail for less than $100. "We're certainly going to see more of this," says Marshal Cohen, chief analyst for NPD Group, a New York-based trend-tracking firm. "I wouldn't be surprised if we saw [other stores] doing something like this. Lots of stores want to get into this midmarket."

As Lagerfeld likes to say, you don't have to spend a lot of money to look good. "Chic is a kind of mayonnaise," he says. "Either it tastes, or it doesn't."