Target is celebrating 20 years of its Design for All program by bringing back some of its greatest hits this weekend. On September 14, it will reissue 300 items in housewares and apparel.
This is not a post about how groundbreaking Target was. (For that perspective, you can read this story in Vogue.) Yes, it was the first major retailer to highlight the work of designers, bringing their designs to the masses — and in at least once case, even to a designer’s own family members. Phillip Lim posted on Instagram recently about how “it wasn’t until my collaboration with Target that my mother fully understood what i was doing with my life!” (Ahhhh, this is the cutest! As someone from an immigrant family who didn’t become a doctor, lawyer, or engineer, I can relate.)
And yes, I, a person of the masses, ate it up. I especially loved it since I was already interested in design. I got to own things dreamed up by designers whose regular line I couldn’t afford. And I also learned about designers I didn’t know about like Dror who made a clever housewares collection for Target that was all about transformation. (The pieces, such as nesting shelves, literally transformed, perfect for small spaces. I still have the clock from this collection.)
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One of the collaboration items that I’ve kept: Philippe Starck for Target magazine rack circa 2002. Oddly, for the 20th anniversary, Target’s re-issuing Starck’s impractical tableware for children. The plant stand is from Etsy. (Review here.)
From the beginning, I was a fan with my Michael Graves for Target butterfly mop and my Isaac Mizrahi for Target sheath dress. I shopped the women’s capsule collections back when Target called them Go International and the sizing was juniors. When a TV commercial featuring Tord Boontje’s holiday housewares collection came on the TV, I gasped. (I bought the dishes, using them year round for many years.)
But this post isn’t about that.
No, this post is about how designer collaborations fueled my bad shopping habits. (Which of course is my own fault.) I bought way more stuff than I ever used or kept, especially when it came to clothes.
Because the collections were limited edition (in so far as mass-produced items can be limited), this encouraged a shopping craze. I’d buy things just to have them and then take my haul home to deliberate. This resulted in lots of buying and returning. I spent a lot of time chasing down items. As the collections became more of a known thing, shopping them became increasingly competitive. (And then the eBay vultures swooped in, buying up merchandise and setting up shop online for ridiculous sums.)
By the time of Jason Wu’s 2012 French-inspired women’s collection, I’d joined a Facebook group of similarly-obsessed Target fans. We shopped for each other, listing our desire for sold-out items on spreadsheets. That way, we’d know what items to keep an eye out for as we stalked returns at our local stores.
I, not a morning person, lined up at Targets before they opened to be among the first to shop a collection. I did this after staying up and waiting for the items to go live on the Target site so that I could snag things online. In a single day, I visited multiple Targets. I knew this was nutty behavior but I couldn’t help myself.
The 3.1 Phillip Lim for Target bags I bought. I sold 2 to friends, kept 3 for myself, but ended up only using one of them. Some of the bags are being reissued.
2013 was perhaps the height of my craze as I bought some 20 items from the Prabal Gurung and the 3.1 Phillip Lim collections. (Double or triple that if you count the things I bought for people in the Facebook group.) I even bought things just because they felt hard to get a hold of, and then convinced friends that they wanted them. (In the end, I only kept five of those 20 items.) Even in 2017, the year I started this blog and when I was already trying to cut back on my shopping, I failed to behave during the Victoria Beckham launch. After reviewing the look book, I told myself I was interested in only one thing, but then I got sucked in.
To be sure, some things I used with love. I toted my black rectangular 3.1 Phillip Lim bag around until the magnet in the closure came unglued, then superglued it back on (not once, but twice). (I’m still using it though the end of its life is nearing. When it goes, I’ll look for a similarly-sized bag of higher quality.) I’ve moved my Philippe Starck magazine rack from apartment to apartment. There’s a black cotton Thakoon sweater with slight balloon sleeves and a cutout in the back that I wear often in the fall.
There are also things that I would have kept using, except that I couldn’t. That Michael Graves butterfly mop? Eventually, Target stopped selling it and I couldn’t get my hands on any of the mop head replacements. I threw out a perfectly usable mop because I couldn’t get a crucial part. (Learned my lesson there! Don’t buy something that needs replacement parts unless they’re easy to obtain.)
Things I bought and barely used (clockwise): Jason Wu lace clutch, 3.1 Phillip Lim peplum top, Altuzarra snakeprint top, 3.1 Phillip Lim dress with pleather accents.
Mostly, though, I bought things, too many things, and then ended up donating or selling the majority of them (hello Poshmark store) — sometimes with the tags still on.
Now that I have a better handle on my shopping habits and value quality over quantity, I regard these collabs as a kind of emotional manipulation. Like sales, they create a false feeling of scarcity. This thing is only available for a short amount of time. If you don’t snag it now, you may not get one.
And I try to remind myself of following, which is pretty much how I approach anything I consider buying now:
- Do I really like this or am I just caught up in wanting to collect? If this item didn’t have a name to it, would I still like it?
- How likely am I to wear or use this?
- How does it fit in with the rest of my wardrobe? Is this my style?
- What materials is it made out of it? (I try to stick to natural fibers these days.)
- How is the quality and construction? Is this item likely to last or will it fall apart quickly? (Note to self: Target handbags are generally not well-made, so don’t buy them no matter how cute!)
I also try to remind myself that if I’m not sure about something, I can think it over. And if I really want it later, I can always track it down second hand when the madness dies down. (That’s how I got this Zac Posen brocade dress.)
With these questions in mind, there’s only really one thing in the reissue that I’m curious about: this Thakoon shibori print shirtdress (or maybe this black version of it). Of course, there are preowned ones from the original 2008 release on resale sites. I might try on a new one just for sizing and if I like it, buy one that’s secondhand. (I’m tempted by this adorable Isaac Mizrahi square neck dress, but I know it’s not my style and I probably wouldn’t wear it more than once.)
I’ve noticed that it’s mostly the clothes I’ve gotten in trouble with. Housewares take up more space so I tended to think more carefully before buying them. With clothes, instead of confronting my overconsumption, I switched to slim hangers to stuff more into my closet.
I’ve come a long way since 2013. By mid-September of that year, I had bought about 60 items of clothing in general (designer collab or not). This year, as I’m chronicling in my shopping diary entries I’m at nine.
Has a designer collaboration ever swept you up in a craze?
Just a fraction of the clothing from Target collaborations I only wore a few times (or never even wore) and didn’t keep: dresses by Jason Wu, Prabal Gurung, Victoria Beckham.
That magazine rack is pretty cool.
I bought things from the Target collab. And you’re right, the quality is not that great. I still have some of the collabs with me.3 items from Missoni one. The craziest one of them all in terms of high ebay resale prices, waiting outside of Target, going to multiple ones, etc… A children’s coat, bc its kid’s I never liked the sleeve length but it’s so cute I can’t bear to part; a black/white zigzag sweater coat–I wore a lot at the time but the hem bubbled and wrinkled after washing it’s since been downgraded to home wear; and a beach towel–I almost never go to the beach and the dye initially did run on the pink side.
I have a cosmetics case from the Calypso one. And plain black tee from the Proenza one. I actually recently got rid of the jacket that I see they are bringing back. But I don’t miss it.
I did buy from the Lim, but purely for resale. While I did sell for a profit it was so small, it wasn’t worth the hassle.
I do like pieces from the Marikkemo release: dishes, placemats, and beach towel, but tbh I know I don’t “NEED” them. And the Thakoon Shibori stuff. But I passed on buying them the 1st time I around. So I will likely pass.
The quality varies, so I think it’s important to consider the fabrics and construction. I have a Richard Chai x Target cotton dress that’s lasted 11 years now and still has plenty of life left. I agree with your last point. If you passed on something the first time around, that’s a good indication to pass again!
Come to think of it, and this surprises me, I almost never bought anything from any of the Target designer collaborations, though it was exactly the kind of thing that could easily have convinced me to buy things that didn’t actually suit my tastes or needs, just because of the “designer” connection. It probably wasn’t for lack of trying either, I just didn’t have any way of getting to the store because I was in college in the suburbs and didn’t have a car. Also, the items I would be interested in – particularly the popular clothing items from these lines – often weren’t that readily available online, if I remember correctly. I may only have purchased one piece ever from these lines, a completely unremarkable Prouenza Schouler x Target short-sleeved sweatshirt that I did wear as loungewear, if I remember correctly.
Definitely agreed that these sorts of things just create a false sense of scarcity. Although some of the items can be good on their own merits (for instance, there’s this set of stacking tea or coffee cups from the Lily Pulitzer x Target line that I think is absolutely adorable, and that I would probably be able to find a use for if I had a slightly bigger kitchen, but I don’t), for the most part… the designs and quality aren’t anything like the designer “real thing” I suspect?
Target had some serious glitches with online ordering earlier on. You’d buy things and receive a confirmation only to get an email the next day saying the order was canceled. It was maddening. (This time around it went smoothly though.)
Sometimes it feels like the designers are knocking themselves off (like with the Michael Graves kettle) but it’s kind of endearing when they do it to themselves. Of course it’s not as nice as the real thing in terms of materials and quality. The 3.1 Phillip Lim bags, for example, have the same look as the Pashli bags, but the Target versions are only 4% of the cost. I actually went to look at a real one since I liked my Target one so much. (But the real ones are heavy, which is a deal breaker for me.) I think that’s why I like to look in store even after I’ve ordered things online, because you never know about the quality until you see it in person. Some things look really cheap and others seem fine. The cotton items tend to feel and look nicer than the polyester ones. I’ve been using a cotton Orla Kiely x Target apron for 10 years now — and it’s holding up except for the fact that I accidentally shrank it in the dryer. Other things may not look at nice as the real version but I’m fine with that. If I had the real Tord Boontje Table Stories dishes, I probably wouldn’t use them because they’re too nice and expensive. But I used my Target versions daily.
Oh boy I remember really wanting a lot of the Phillip Lim and Jason Wu items, although I was in college at the time and had a minuscule clothing budget and not any time to hunt things down. I did end up getting a few things over the years. I eventually got from ebay once things cooled down a bicycle print shirtdress and one of those mixed print shirts from the Phillip Lim one. I ended up donating both of them as they were just too large overall (and the next size down I think would have been too small) and I didn’t think they were worth getting extensively tailored.
I don’t have a full sized target within convenient distance of me, but I checked out the what was left of of the anniversary items when I was in Portland last weekend and I was not impressed at the quality of most of the things. It was about the same as normal Target pieces but much more expensive! I can’t remember how much that was the case that first time around.
I will at least check out designer collabs when Uniqlo does them, but since I’ve gotten so incredibly picky about things over the past few years I find I’ve been better about FOMO-motivated purchases.
Uniqlo collabs got my money too! But they seem to be less splashy about advertising them. The Target ad campaigns are always so alluring. They make me want all the things. I didn’t keep a single piece of the Jason Wu stuff and just the one Phillip Lim bag in the end. I think the prices with this anniversary collection are about the same, though some have changed. (Like the Zac Posen brocade bow dress. I remember that being $80 and it’s $60 this time.) But it’s true that they all cost more than regular Target brand items, and what are you really getting for that besides the name?
My one collab regret is the Tord Boontje white laser cut curtain from Target. Discovered it too late, and now they’re impossible to find.
I remember being tempted by many collabs, but ultimately held strong decided to sit out. Mostly because I’m a big snob who wants the ‘original’! I totally get what you mean about false scarcity. I definitely felt that way when I bought my vintage lamp. I did let several options go before I settled on that one, but the lengths I went to was a little ridiculous! I’m sure Danish people thought I was really silly, since the lamp is so commonplace for them, but I really did investigate every avenue, and that was the only option.
Whoa, I don’t remember that curtain! I admire your resolve. I think the lower price points were enticing to me, especially since I couldn’t afford the real deal 20 or even 10 years ago. But now that I have more disposable income, I’m more likely to go for something original for quality.
That lamp is so gorgeous. I think it counts for actually scarce, since it’s harder to find Stateside.
I SO relate to this. I also waited in line for that same Jason Wu line, got the dress, the scarf…. honestly, waste of money. It isn’t designer, the quality is not there, I was suckered in.
LOVE your blog btw 🙂 I’m such a huge fan now.
Thank you! The Wu poplin dress seemed OK to me because it was cotton & the stitching seemed alright, but a lot of these collab items are polyester and shoddy quality.