L.J. WilliamsonIs Missoni in line to become the next Ed Hardy?
The well-established Italian fashion house's special Target line of clothing and housewares debuted this morning, on the same day I needed to hit the store for an early-morning toilet paper run, and zigzags were flying off the shelves at a record rate. Said one battle-weary cashier, “I've never seen anything like this, except maybe at Christmastime.”
By 8:45 a.m., the devastation was complete; Credit: L.J. Williamson
The line is priced high-ish for Target, but crazy low for Missoni — one little girls' sweater was going for $39.99. Shoppers ranged from long-time devotees of the brand to bandwagon jumpers who'd never heard of the stuff before it hit the discounters shelves, but people were lining up both outside the store and at the Target.com website — in fact, the New York Times reported that the Missoni debut brought the store's site down for two hours.
Load Up That Cart; Credit: L.J. Williamson
Missoni's ubiquitous zigzag patterns look like the afghans everyone's mom was crocheting in the 1970's, but in hipper colors. Some of the items are tempting, to be sure, but when something goes this mass-market this quickly, can over-saturation be far behind? It's always more fun to hear someone say, “Oh, that's so cute!” than “Oh, you must have bought that at Target.”
Still in stock; Credit: L.J. Williamson
Although Target's stock of Missoni items will probably be gone by mid-day, the good news is that this handsome zigzag-patterned Pro Scrub mop head (right) was still in plentiful supply.
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