archive members - a HUGE confusion

[Payal]

Hi all,
I am trying to figure how archives are handled in make and have boiled
down to this short Makefile.


$ cat Makefile2
libfashion.a : libfashion(ready.o) 
        @ranlib $@
libfashion.a(ready.o) : ready.o
        ar rv libfashion.a $^
$ make -f Makefile2 
cc    -c -o ready.o ready.c
ar rv libfashion ready.o
ar: creating libfashion
a - ready.o
ranlib: 'libfashion.a': No such file
make: *** [libfashion.a] Error 1

Why is ar trying to make libfashion when I told it EXPLICTLY to make 
libfashion.a?
Strangely, when I remove first 2 lines, ar behaves correctly like below.

$ cat Makefile2
libfashion.a(ready.o) : ready.o
        ar rv libfashion.a $^
$ make -f Makefile2 
cc    -c -o ready.o ready.c
ar rv libfashion.a ready.o
ar: creating libfashion.a
a - ready.o

I have already spend 2 hrs on this. Can someone please help?
Thanks a lot in advance.

With warm regards,
-Payal
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