Let’s Face It, There’s Always Something Else To Shop For, And It’s Target Time

I don’t know about you, but I have a had to institute a moratorium on spending on spring clothing and accessories.  I have no reasonable excuse for buying anything else.  So, trying to steer clear of my favorite websites, I thought it was time to check out the Shops at Target.  Without question, my favorite is the Privet House shop (I’m not a dog owner, and after my dear friend was awoken on Mother’s Day by a poop covered dog who had been sick in his crate the night before and let out by a mischievous five year old, I have no interest in becoming one — so I have an aversion to the Polka Dog Bakery shop without even checking it out so it could be just lovely but I wouldn’t know).  The Webster shop is a little preppy for my taste, but there is some nice merchandise if you go for that kind of thing.

Not surprisingly, many of the Privet House items have sold out, but there are still some cute pieces left.  The dishes, napkins and glasses are very pretty.  Admittedly, at this point nice melamine dishes are a dime a dozen, except that they aren’t remotely a dime a dozen so the Target prices for these dishes makes them pretty hard to resist.  $15.99 for a set of four dinner plates isn’t half bad given that comparable French Bull melamine dishes, while beautiful, retail for  $11.00 each.  The bad news is out of four styles of printed melamine dinner plates, only one is still available online.  Truth be told, it’s my favorite of the four.

Privet House at Target Brown Toile Dinner Plates

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Another Affordable Designer Capsule Collection … Ho Hum

Karl by Karl Lagerfeld

Is it just me, or is this whole affordable designer capsule collection thing just spinning out of control?  I bet you’re getting tired of reading posts about designer collaborations. I’m getting tired of hearing of them and I am obsessed with the damn things. That suggests to me that something is clearly out of whack. Let’s take stock of the collections since the summer:

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Prim and Proper, Sweet and Pretty, Is That Really 2012…

It seems like this retro vibe is everywhere lately.  And not a revival of the 70s kind of retro, but the 1920s, 1940s ….  I can hardly go a day without hearing someone mention how much she loves Downtown Abbey.  The flapper look made a return on the spring runways.  And that Jason Wu for Target collection, now the it has been released in its entirety … peter pan collars, pleats, prim and proper.  Sending women back at least 60 years.  There’s a reason I didn’t leap to discuss the collection once the full cookbook was released.  The few things I had already discussed were pretty much the whole story.

In her review of the Golden Globes for WWD recently Bridgette Foley bemoaned the boring, simple, prettiness of the Golden Globe fashions.  Generally when styles come back, they come back with a twist that makes them modern.  The Louis Vuitton collection for spring has just enough twists to make it interesting, is sufficiently self-aware to be brilliant.  But looking around, what’s particularly striking is how much plain old, retro, throwback, prim pretty there is.  Without any irony.  Without any modern twist.  That was Foley’s problem with the Golden Globes, and I think it’s my problem with the bulk of Jason Wu for Target collection.

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The Desire is Almost Better Than the Real Thing – Fab Collabs

This is not a shopping blog, so I’m sorry if I occasionally post something pretty much geared only toward female shopaholics.  But you know there is nothing I love more than a really good designer collaboration.  Waiting for February to arrive is kind of stressing me out.  Meanwhile I am struggling to get by on the litter teasers the stores release – in order that we all spend a month coveting the exact same pieces as each other, when likely none of us will succeed in getting them.  For a true fashion lover, the anticipation is at least half of the story, so I’ll enjoy the month of anxious desire almost as much as I would enjoy actually wearing the clothes.

I have a bone to pick with Topshop.  Months after the first images of a dress from the Mary Katrantzou for Topshop collection (due to drop next month) were leaked, Topshop has finally released some new images.  And … wait for it … they’re of the same fracking dress!  I’m glad to see it on a person instead of a mannequin, it looks like it will fit nicely, yada yada yada.  But really?  You can’t leak one or two more garments?  At this rate I’m not, in fact, going to have a chance to fantasize about the beautiful pieces I lust after, before it’s already too late for me to get any of them.  I already feel jipped.  Topshop, I’ll show you … so there … by not showing the new pictures until AFTER I show the Target pictures. Ha!

Meanwhile, I am clearly going to have to suck it up and get over any issues with Target, because pictures of the Jason Wu for Target collection (in stores February 5) have started so leak and it looks so darn cute!  I have to have them all.  I can already taste the disappointment.  (Yes, I do realize that they are geared toward 20 somethings, maybe 30 year olds, and I am by no means a 20 something, but that hasn’t stopped my compulsive trendiness yet.  I never thought I’d be one of  THOSE women — the deluded ones who continue to dress like they’re 25 well into middle age — but apparently I’m pretty short sighted.)

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Gotta Love Capitalism. Right?

Supply and demand, price point — market forces are a powerful thing.  They’re the reality of how our financial system operates.  But still, it’s so darn unfair sometimes … it can’t help but burn a little.  Target messed up big time with their Missoni collection.  There’s really no excuse.  A company that large and that successful, their computer systems simply should have been ready to handle the influx of traffic and should have been programmed correctly to manage inventory vs. incoming orders.  I was interested to learn that Target’s website had been managed in conjunction with Amazon up until a month before the Missoni launch at which point Target took on sole management of its website.  Oops.  If you ask me, it’s just plain irresponsible.  And then canceling the orders of customers that were placed at 6 am on the day of the launch while fulfilling orders placed later for the exact same merchandise.  It’s incredibly disrespectful of their dedicated customers.  But the amazing thing is that Target, most likely, will not have to pay any price for the blunder.  Had a smaller company pulled the same thing, it would be out of business, plain and simple.  Target being Target, we all somehow still feel the need to shop there — a need that doesn’t go away overnight.  We still see it as a unique source of affordable, tasteful fashion.  True style for the masses.  And the designer collaborations continue.

So, in spite of the morally righteous anger that I feel toward Target for canceling a large part of my order (yes, I’m secretly glad they did, since they saved me a hell of a lot of money spent on stuff I absolutely did not need … but still), I find myself compelled to jump right on board again and order half of the hats in the Albertus Swanepoel for Target collection.

They’re great hats.  They’re $19.99 each.  I am not a hats person.  I feel utterly self conscious in a hat.  And yet for $19.99, who can resist?  They’re just so darn much fun.  And that is much of the beauty of fashion after all — having fun.  So I already have the darn hats in my cart at Target.com, and am planning my trip to the store for those that aren’t available online.

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