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11 November 2007

Cavalli design for all...maybe not


I was tragically out of town when the H&M Roberto Cavalli collection dropped. But, I decided that I would check in at H&M in Philly when I had a few free minutes to see if anything had survived the mad dash. I walked in and I was very surprised to discover the store was somewhat pristine...mere hours before had this not been the site of a crushing wave of fashionistas battling it out for leopard print? Apparently not. I was informed by the shopgirl that Cavalli had only been released at a select few H&Ms. Cavalli was not in Philly, I called a friend Cavalli was not in Boston, not even on Newbury street. As far as I can tell the H&M Cavalli collection was released in several NYC shops, Chicago and San Fran. Lagerfeld, McCartney, Madonna...these H&M collections went nation wide. So, why not Cavalli? Don't we all deserve a little leopard print in our lives?

I am unable to offer you a review of the Cavalli collection, but for those of you who live in one of the few cities where the collection was sold, yet has not sold out, I can point you to AnnieNYC. After reading her posts it turn out even NYC fashionistas were unable to get their hands on much. She had a spot in line with a fanatic who stood in line from 2 am waiting for the store to open. Yet, by the time she got to the jewelry stand and the evening dresses everything was gone! No refills in sight! She goes on to state if the entire collection was purchased in mass by the first ten customers to resell on ebay, what was the point of doing the collection to begin with?

AnnieNYC really got be thinking. Is a Cavalli leopard print dress wrap dress for H&M any better than any other animal print wrap dress? Better than a DVF wrap dress? Is it worth waiting in line for 11 hours for poorly made clothes just because the original concept for the piece came from a design superstar? While I do love having unique and exciting pieces in my clothing and accessories closet, I am not sure diffusion designer collections are always the best place to find these items. Personally, I've not had the best luck with my H&M pieces lasting beyond a season or two. Generally speaking that is not a problem because I don't invest heavily in the pieces and I don't wait hours to buy them. I would however be quite upset if I waited several hours in line to buy a piece, only to have the seam unravel on the fourth wear. If you take the ridiculous crowds and lines out of the equation, I happily buy disposable designer fashion from Target and H&M. With the Cavalli collection, H&M has taken designer collaboration in entirely the wrong direction. Designers make clothing for H&M and Target in order to bring their designs to a wider audience. These collections are about accessibility, not exclusivity. The limited release of the Cavalli collection, and even then the low stock put out in the stores where the collection was released leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I feel less inclined to go check out future designer collections at H&M because I know it is unlikely that there will even be anything in the store.
Image from AnnieNYC

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, it appeared that H&M lets people buy however much they want. I saw people leaving with entire racks worth of stuff to obviously hawk on Ebay. It's sad when people do this but sadder when the store lets them get away with it.
However, on the upside, and to make you feel better, the ONLY piece I thought was any good was the men's zebra-printed undies. The animal prints looked *hideously* cheap, even by H&M standards. The Stella stuff was cute, the V&R stuff was nice, this? Yeeeeccchhh

Chic and Charming said...

Thanks! That does make me feel a lot better. To be honest I was most excited about the leopard print tights. I wanted to wear them with a jeans pencil skirt and black flats. It would have been so cute.
I forgot about V&R, we had that in our stores as well!

flutterbyblue said...

The photos on this site are kind of tacky, but check out the tights! There is an opaque leopard print item:

http://www.stockingirl.com/

Ondo Lady said...

I am not into all that leopard print so I will be giving it a miss. I did see some of the stuff that Karl Lagerfeld, Stella McCartney and Victor & Rolf did and a lot of the stuff was very good quality.

The Budget Babe said...

Well said. We tried to check out Cavalli for H&M at the Michigan Ave store in downtown Chicago during our lunch break but it was all gone before noon :( Were we disappointed? Yes, but only because we wanted to give a full report on the line for our readers!