Isaac Mizrahi has been named Target’s creative director at large, a newly created role for the retailer that’s a homecoming of sorts for the designer. Mizrahi was the first major fashion designer Target collaborated with, starting back in 2002, creating a high-low fashion playbook that has since become commonplace.

“You don’t have to spend $8,000 on a sweater for it to be amazing. A good sweater can be $45,” says Mizrahi. “And I feel like Target invented that — we did that. So it’s fertile ground now for me to continue to prove that. It’s a bigger world now, but I feel like now it’s time for Target to claim that original stake.”

In his role, Mizrahi will serve as an advisor across Target’s in-house design teams, mentor young talent, and also play a role in storytelling and marketing for the retailer. He won’t be designing himself, but he sees his job as one to inspire, to push, and to drive a cohesive design code across Target’s departments, starting primarily with fashion and home, but extending to all of the retailer’s in-house brands, in categories like food and wellness.

“Isaac is going to look at our product, provide a point of view, and actually push us creatively,” says Cara Sylvester, Target’s chief merchandising officer. “He’s going to bring an external perspective on trends, creativity, and culture to really help us push the thinking in that product creation phase.” Already, Sylvester adds, Mizrahi has spent time in Target’s HQ home of Minneapolis (which he calls a “very soulful place”), getting a feel for its design process and teams. Mizrahi will work closely with Gena Fox, Target’s SVP of design, who was promoted to the role in May.

Target is tapping a seasoned fashion designer at a time when, as Mizrahi points out, other mass retailers have begun seeking out more elevated design hires. Mizrahi at Target is the latest in a trend that has seen names like John Galliano teaming with Zara, Zac Posen posting up in a full-time creative role at Gap Inc, and Francesco Risso and Clare Waight Keller signing contracts with Fast Retailing’s GU and Uniqlo, respectively. These appointments make the designer-retailer relationship more official than a one-off collaboration, though those are still plentiful. And they’re mutually beneficial: the designer locks in work that makes them visible to a mass audience and the retailer gets access to the designer’s fashion credentials.

Making design more accessible is something that Mizrahi says he’s always been drawn to. “The first 15 years of my company were the ready-to-wear, couture kind of thing. My biggest doors were Bergdorf Goodman and Neiman Marcus. And then from there it sort of morphed, and I decided that the right thing was to try to democratize it,” says Mizrahi. “Why did it need to be something that could only be available in those stores?” He remembers one customer who told him, after the Target partnership, that they’d no longer buy his clothes. “I thought, ‘Whoa.’ But that was one out of a thousand. And then high-low dressing really worked in my favor. Since then, you have a million of these collaborations. And merchants understand that competition is much, much higher.”

Target’s also brought in Mizrahi as part of a broader turnaround strategy. CEO Michael Fiddelke succeeded longtime executive Brian Cornell in February and has since made a series of hires and leadership change-ups. Target reported a 1.7% sales decline in 2025, to $104.8 billion, and part of Fiddelke’s plan to return the company to growth includes reinvigorating Target’s design prowess.

“We had to have honest conversations about what was strong, what we want to preserve, and what we want to think about moving forward. We want to lead with style, design, and value across all of our businesses,” says Sylvester. “We also acknowledged that we needed to get a little faster. We’re working on that specifically in our apparel business — that’s an area that’s not been strong for us over the last few years.”

Collaborations and product drops — like Target’s recent collection with the sweatshirt brand Parke, which drew queues and quickly sold out — are part of the strategy in making the retailer feel relevant and timely. But Sylvester adds that the goal is not to be “overly focused” on collaborations, particularly the big ones that land once or twice a year, but to fill the year with smaller drops tied to social media campaigns. Mizrahi will play a role in working on year-round collections.

“In a sea of algorithms coming at you, where there is a ton of same–same, consumers want distinction. They want to know what’s right for them,” Sylvester says. “I’m working on unearthing and bringing the art side back to merchandising, and really elevating the craft of merchandising. And that means being bolder about our assortment choices, making the choice, and then backing those choices up. My test to my merchants is if you could close your eyes and you could be anywhere else in any other store, then it’s not distinctively Target.”

Creating a sharper assortment and building on the legacy of the design collabs for the social media generation is why Mizrahi was recruited: turning Target back into Tarjay.

“[Target is] this design-for-all company, and we were always about that. We were always slightly more fun. There was a little bit more humor at Target. It’s still there,” Mizrahi says. “It just needs to be expanded upon and broadened, and that’s my vision. That’s what’s so exciting.”