McQueen, Part 1


photo courtesy of style.com

Alexander McQueen has been on my mind a lot lately. He sent out a much talked about collection this past March in Paris. And right before that, on March 1, his capsule collection for Target launched. His men's collection, which showed back in January, was surprisingly subdued, with a Sam the Butcher meets Robert Pattinson vibe to it. I'm hoping to get a chance to talk about all of these things, but today I wanna talk about Target.

Target has a history of mostly successful collaborations with buzzy designers. Like H&M, they've looked to increase their caché by aligning with these designers. In turn, the designers benefit from the publicity, increasing their name recognition beyond the borders of Bryant Park and the handful of obsessives like me that have nothing better to do than flip through slides on style.com.

In the past, a designer's collaboration with a mainstream manufacturer was more likely to have sounded a death knell on their career than to have done them any favors. The licensing deals struck by Yves Saint Laurent, Gucci and others in the 1980s all took a toll on the labels. It was only by ending those licensing relationships, thereby taking back control of the design and the supply of the brand, that those labels were able to prosper again.

The key to the new relationships between fashion labels and high street stores is supply. Licensing deals in the 1980s failed because the labels had little control over what was produced. The licensee, unhindered by the expense of a couture design team, and with no allegiance to a particular brand, is eager to extract as much profit as possible out of the relationship. This means churning out as many green and red Gucci keychains as possible. But eventually, if you can buy into Gucci for a dollar at a swap meet, there's no point in spending hundreds of dollars for horsebit loafers or a logo bag. The short-term payoff from licensing fees ultimately results in a long-term loss of revenue and brand equity.

The current "mass-tige" collections appear to have learned from past mistakes. An aura of exclusivity is maintained by severely curtailing the number of pieces produced. In many cases, like the collections done for H&M by Karl Lagerfeld and Stella McCartney, the clothes were all sold within the first couple of days. Neither collaboration appears to have done damage to the brands of these two designers. And Target has, at times, gone even further to ensure that these clothes do not lose their magical designer powers. For its collaboration with Proenza Schouler, they created a Target "outpost" at hipster emporium Opening Ceremony.

All of this brings to me my point. Yes, it takes me awhile to get to the point. You should be happy it only took six paragraphs, and that I remained remarkably on topic! McQueen's Target collection is still for sale, ONE MONTH after it launched. Worst of all, IT'S ON CLEARANCE! So what gives?

Flipping through the images, I'm not struck by it being particularly bad. A little boring at times maybe, but not bad. Looking at the styled photos of the clothes here, I'm definitely underwhelmed by the presentation on Target's website. And to be fair, it appears that some of the more stand-out items are no longer available. But still...


photo courtesy of Target
Battlestar Gallactica may be over, but you'll always have this T!


photo courtesy of Target
There was an awesome shift dress with this same print, but it's out of stock. This tee is available in a medium, and it's only $14!


photo courtesy of Target
Hot shorts! 21 bucks!!

Reading reviews, it sounds like there are fit issues with some of the items. That's when it's nice to be someone like Rei Kawakubo -- you can just say that the squished boob is an intentional element in the deconstruction of the bathing suit. But most of the reviews are pretty positive (and generally indicate that the clothes are cuter in person, so check them out for yourself).

There is no question that the collection must have suffered from the current economic climate. As in "Here I am at Target, I don't know how long I'll have a job, and I can either buy toilet paper or this McQueen jumpsuit." But still, many of these items are still available in all sizes, which leads me to believe that Target overproduced. Perhaps the lessons of those 80s licenses have not been fully learned.

Oddly enough, my favorite runway show of all time, one of the few that comes to mind year after year, was Alexander McQueen's Spring/Summer 1999 show. At the end of the show (the point at which a bride would traditionally have her exit in an haute couture collection), Shalom Harlow stands on a revolving platform surrounded by two robotic arms like those you would see in an automotive assembly plant. She is dewy and nervous, as if she has been running from these robots and they finally have her trapped. Her dress is relatively simple -- puffy and white, cinched above her breasts by a tan leather belt. Suddenly, one of the arms lunges toward her and sprays her with paint. Then the other one sprays her. As she continues to turn around, helplessly menaced by the robots, her white dress is soiled by the paint. Did McQueen have a rape fantasy that needed to be worked out? Or was he expressing a view on the destruction of fashion via mass production and machine? If the latter is the case, I wonder if he's thought about it as he's reflected on his relationship with Target. Has the collaboration actually enhanced his career, or is it just a mess of bad graffiti on the otherwise pristine walls surrounding his brand?

Watch the video of that moment here (skip ahead to 0:37).