Demonstrating confidence in its holiday offering, Lord & Taylor for the first time set up a 3,100-square-foot showroom inside the Fifth Avenue flagship. The space displays a broad sampling of the exclusive items, key looks and important labels for the season, and is set up for staff and media to understand the store's elevated merchandise approach. In past years, Lord & Taylor typically arranged a smaller-scale holiday preview to address a handful of editors.

Overall, the fashion attitude is contemporary and modern. On display are exclusives from MK Michael Kors, Oleg Cassini, Badgley Mischka, Kate Spade and Cole Haan, to name a few. There is a large presentation for Uggs, and another for private label cashmeres that go beyond the cardigans and sweater sets for which Lord & Taylor was known. Now there are funnel-neck dresses with big buttons, long luxurious robes and stone-trimmed flyaway cardigans, with a lot more detailing and distinction to the products on view.

Lord & Taylor expects to generate $40 million in cashmere sales this holiday season, which accounts for about 70 percent of the annual cashmere volume. The store also projects a $28 million dress season. Dresses generate about $100 million in sales annually.

In accessories, there is an emphasis on metallics, patent leather and bright colors. The chain is hoping for a big handbag season as well, though perhaps relatively not as big as its major competitors.

Aside from the accelerated drive for exclusives, the fourth-quarter offerings reflect more than three years of work to overhaul the merchandise. According to Elfers, 85 percent of the merchandise has been reworked to establish a sharper identity in a retail landscape that is ever-more competitive. Lord & Taylor is focused on better, bridge and contemporary products and prices, and seeks to fill a niche between Macy's and Saks Fifth Avenue on the fashion and price spectrum, although the positioning appears to put the specialty chain in direct competition with Nordstrom. The Lord & Taylor remerchandising is ongoing, Elfers stressed.

"We continue to dramatically reduce the number of [stockkeeping units] and work very hard to focus on increasing the average sale," she said.

In addition, the focus is on rolling out less distributed vendors. In accessories and jewelry, they include Uggs, Kate Spade, Louis Hill, Cole Haan, John Hardy, Lagos and Judith Ripka, and in contemporary sportswear and dresses, Searle, BCBG, MK Michael Kors, Jill Stuart and 12th Street by Cynthia Vincent. Lacoste is also "a big rollout," Elfers said.