Liz Claiborne, the American apparel owner of brands Juicy Couture, Lucky Brand Jeans and DKNY, announced first-quarter sales were down 65 per cent.

According to the company's statement, results are adjusted to exclude the impact of expenses resulting from the Company's previously announced plans to streamline its operations in 2007 and 2006, including the closing of underperforming and one-off domestic specialty retail concepts, and the redeployment of resources to more efficiently manage its multi-brand, multi-channel and multi-geography portfolio.

William L. McComb, Chief Executive Officer of Liz Claiborne, said: "Clearly, we wish we could have reported better first quarter earnings and provided a stronger outlook for the year. Our first quarter results reflect significant challenges in our domestic wholesale business, partially offset by improved direct to consumer performance. Results were driven by lower than anticipated domestic wholesale re-orders, higher levels of markdowns across the domestic wholesale channel and changes in the retail calendar that shifted some shipments into the second quarter."