I Like Socks

I’m late on posting this, but hell, might as well finish the draft, get it out of the queue, new year and all.

Late December we went to one of the local Targets that was graced with the presence of some of Rodarte’s little capsule collection.

The situation and lighting was one where flash or no flash were equally annoying options, as far as getting clarity and detail.  These are quickie snapshots taken to get a point across.

There were dresses and bikinis and printed tees too, but I picked a couple of pieces that seemed best representative. I could not find the tights they made, which are pretty much just large pattern lace and I know Leg Avenue makes a variation in a thigh high.  All images link to Flickr pages that have more info.

Anyway, the piece I liked the most wasn’t even available online:

Quality-wise, if you like Target’s house brands (Mossimo Supply Co. and Merona, specifically), then you’ll have no problem with these pieces.  I personally am totally a fan of them, and found nothing wrong with all the little tulle/lingerie/lace fabric and treatment, nor the cardigans.

A couple pieces though, were victims of design and circumstance:

The tulle that works so well on the skirts comes off as itchy, snaggy and badly draped here.  Online reviews at Target say the fabric is as itchy as it looks and that the bows are not tacked, so they come undone and don’t go back very well.

Well, it’s printed, so the inside remains white.  This is always a problem with prints, they might have been better off using a mustardy-yellow lace and printing black on it.  Inside felt scratchy,hung like crap—but that might have been a combination of the fabric and any residual size.

I wish they were carrying the socks they show in the looks. Closest equivalents at Sock Dreams are the Textured Stripe Knee High and fishnets over beige stockings, both raw-topped (cut the crotch top of the tights off so they’re just legs).

Overall I am remaining sceptically hopeful for Gaultier’s line, though it sounds like it is coming from a similar approach to what McQueen did—referencing “women and pop culture” instead of those things that made us love the designers in the first place.

A month or so ago my co-workers and I travelled up to Seattle for an event.  The car we took was the newest vechicle I’ve ever been in and the inside looked like a spaceship.  Well, really, what the current present regards as a spaceship, which reality falls a touch short of.

I off-handedly noted that car design was tending towards a super-future look to give us the feeling of personal space vehicles that our past predicted and future denies us.  We can’t have the future so we’re creating a façade around our everyday objects in an attempt to placate our desires.

The past several seasons (and what has been popping up in between) is tending in the same direction.  Though some designers have always “looked ahead”, today’s idea of tomorrow is permeating through collections in ever more obvious ways.  And I’m not even looking at shoes and accessories, because I’m not trying to draft a thesis paper here, just pointing a couple things out.

I can’t pretend to know why, and I will ignore the obvious fall backs, like escapism to a time and space of ready cash to drop on the latest couple-thou frock.  Everybody says stuff like that and, on average, everybody is wrong.

I’m just sayin’ is all.

The retro-future aspects of some of the looks is like a one-two punch—pulling nostalgia from a past that wasn’t to a future that probably won’t.  But, I mean, the future is now, right?  We’re looking at Resort: 2010 (thankfully not designed by one, though pity not the other).  The cycle of retro-retro and futuretasma is congealing into a present of structure and shiny that just won’t be denied.

I am, honestly, going to write about the last couple of fashion weeks beyond where you can get the legwear.  Today though, I’m gonna be all timely and shit.  Let’s set it up.

Last year I nearly pissed myself with joy when I discovered Target’s Go International line.  This was because they had a capsule line by Jovovich-Hawk, who I love inexplicably.  I then promptly fell in love with a couple of pieces, waited until the line was 75% off and bought a dress.  Because I am like that.

Anyhow, in November of last year, it was announced that Target was starting this new thing, Designer Collaborations—and that it was kicking off with Alexander McQueen.  By February, a fuller version of the looks popped up.  It was understandably toned down—inspired by Leila Moss, who is called a “90s Brit Rocker” (though her band doesn’t seem to extend that far back), the skinny pants paired with bulkier tops made sense.  Also, you know, Target, logical price point, design for all.

I was, and am, pretty stoked for this.  Beyond my love and respect for some designers, I don’t froth at the mouth about labels.  But I am interested in this “Design for All” thing, as it hints at a truly post-modern future for fashion.

So it is out today and is not heart-stopping—there are a lot of basics, one or two good pieces and something that makes your brain hurt.  And Blythe is involved somehow.  Nonetheless, there is a touch of the future in there.

And I am probably going to buy these when they are, inevitably, on clearance.