Yesterday, Macy's announced a strategic alliance agreement with the Ellen Tracy owner, Brand Matter LLC, and its sportswear licensee, RVC Enterprises. Under the terms of the agreement, Macy's will be the exclusive department store retailer of Ellen Tracy branded women's sportswear, beginning in March 2010.

Macy's will offer its customers an exclusive array of Ellen Tracy better sportswear focused on modern, related separates. This will include jackets, shirts, pants, sweaters, woven tops, knit tops and bottoms. Price points, for example, will be in the range of $99 to $149 for jackets and $50 to $99 for pants.

The exclusive sportswear will launch in more than 100 Macy's stores and online at macys.com with plans for additional rollout over time to additional stores. The launch will include new Ellen Tracy shops in Macy's largest flagship stores, including Herald Square in New York, Union Square in San Francisco, State Street in Chicago and Dadeland in Miami. The two companies will work closely together on new ventures and brand extensions for the future.

Ellen Tracy is joining other exclusive brands at Macy's, including Tommy Hilfiger, Martha Stewart Collection, Rachel Rachel Roy and Donald Trump.

While fans of the Ellen Tracy have something to cheer about with the Macy's deal, some confusion has been caused by an Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy petition filed against Ellen Tracy LLC , which was approved by the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York today. The petition was filed by three creditors seeking nearly $4 million in claims. The creditors were manufacturers of Ellen Tracy products.

The entity that is being forced into bankruptcy, Ellen Tracy LLC, is a former licensee of the Ellen Tracy name which ceased its operations some time ago. It has nothing to do with the brand anymore. Brand Matter LLC, on the other hand, is the entity that owns, manages, markets and licenses the intellectual property of Ellen Tracy.

Chic fashion designer Rachel Roy will be the latest to have a more affordable version of her wares for sale. Jones Apparel Group Inc., which has a 50% stake in the designer has said that it is launching a contemporary line called Rachel Rachel Roy to be sold at Macy's. The line will debut in August and will be priced at $59 to $299 for sportswear, $79 to $199 for shoes, up to $195 for jewelry, and as much as $109 for handbags. Jones has announced that the will also be lowering the prices on Rachel Roy's luxury label by 15 to 20 percent.

JC Penney was also in the news this week with the announcement that they will be offering a new line of Joseph Abboud clothing called the Joe Joseph Abboud men's clothing collection. JC Penney also recently launched a line with Charlotte Ronson.

Department store Macy's is feeling the fallout as shoppers buy less and malls become ghost towns. The company announced on Monday that it would be eliminating around 7,000 jobs, four percent of the company work force, over the next few months. Macy's Inc. also cut its quarterly dividend and has forecast earnings for fiscal 2009 far below Wall Street expectations. While it seems no company is optimistic about the coming retail year Macy's seems particularly pessimistic. The company will be closing 11 stores across the country. Other cost cutting measures include no raises for executives in spring 2009 and cuts in matching 401(k) contributions. Other benefits for Macy's execs including company cars, life insurance and merchandise discounts may be forthcoming. The Macy's numbers fall right between Sak's which will cut around 1,100 jobs and Neiman Marcus which plans to cut 375 jobs.

Everywhere I go I see signs that stores are going out of business. Part of the problem is that declining sales make it harder and harder to pay the rent. One of the solutions that some brands might be embracing in 2009 is the concept of sharing space. It's hardly a new concept but it's one that has fallen out of vogue recently as stores each mounted their own massive flagship enterprises. Mike Duff of BNET reported recently on two such collaborations. Danish silver seller, Georg Jensen recently refurbished its Manhattan store and asked 25 Danish companies to distribute their products through its store in a barter arrangement. The store was outfitted with the products, which are not sold in the store but Georg Jensen showcases the brands such as Bang & Olufsen and provides details how to buy them.

Another closer arrangement involves Macy's and FAO Schwarz. Macy's is adding FAO Schwarz shops to more of its department stores. All the stores that have space will get one of the new toy stores, a full 675 stores. The arrangement works well for Macy's which gets the prestige of the FAO Schwarz name and the distinctive traditional toys FAO Schwarz develops for its stores like giant stuffed animals. The Macy's selection includes a mix of private-label toys with "some of the best-sellers" from other sources that customers would find at the New York FAO Schwarz store.

I anticipate that we will be seeing more deals like these as well as other arrangements in the coming months as stores try to find ways to boost sales and trim the bottom line.

Actress Eva Mendes has become the latest celebrity with a home decor line. Her new line Vida, created with her partner George Augusto offers five bedding styles that she terms, according to a press release, "easy luxury - the colors, fabrics and textures that I live and love, brought to life in a stylish, comfortable and affordable way." The bedding will be sold at Macy's and will include four-piece bedding sets starting at $340 with completer sets of decorative pillows and shams selling for $100. The style shown above is Bettina.

Leonardo DiCaprio's gorgeous Israeli model girlfriend Bar Refaeli appears in the ad campaign for Sean Combs' modestly-named new fragrance, "I Am King." The pix (above) portray Puffy (or Diddy or whatever he's calling himself this week) tooling around in Saint-Tropez and Monaco on helicopters, yachts and so forth with Refaeli (left) and another model in typical mega-mogul fashion. New York magazine reports the new cologne will launch exclusively at Macy's in December with a global launch set for February, and a women's fragrance ("I Am Queen") to follow in 2009; global sales are expected to total $100 million in the first year alone.

Next up in the oh-look-we-are-green-too category comes Macy's which has announced that they will start using shopping bags made in part with recycled paper at its Macy's stores and biodegradable packaging for online shipments. The shopping bags will be made from paper that uses 30% recycled material and will be 100% recyclable. The previous Macy's bags were laminated and not recyclable, which is a big deal when you consider. Macy's uses more than 43 million handled shopping bags each year. Like other stores, Macy's will sell their own branded totes. The reusable cotton tote bags for $3.95, with $1 going to the National Park Foundation. On April 26, the first 100 to 150 customers at every Macy's store will receive a free reusable tote bag.

Better news is that macys.com and bloomingdales.com, are ditching those annoying synthetic packing peanuts in favor of biodegradable packing materials made from raw ingredients such as potato starch. In another green move, company plans to put solar panals on more than 30 of their stores, many in California. Other retailers making similar moves recently include eLuxury, which has stopped printing paper catalogs and Nordstrom which has introduced environmentally-friendly packing materials.