Last night was the Jason Wu for Target launch party, meaning those that were there could shop the collection ahead of time, à la the semi-recent Missoni for Target and Versace for H&M; extravaganzas. We imagined eBay would be pretty Jason Wu-packed by now, but we were surprised to find out that there's only, like, nine pieces up there—including a trench modeled by Blake Lively, who was there showing off her spray tan.
So, what does this mean: Has collab hysteria died down? While the line was certainly really, really long last night, there was an astonishing amount of elbow room throughout 95% of the event space. And we didn't see any pushing, shoving, what have you. Perhaps the Wu collection is enough of a non-gimmick to make people actually want to hold onto it, rather than try to make a quick buck on eBay. Or, perhaps nice, pleated skirts and girly cardigans aren't in as high demand as palm tree leggings and zig-zag rainboots have been in the past.
Not to be outdone by the Jason Wu for Target launch party in New York last night, the Marni for H&M; collaboration is making news today with the release of the first Sofia-Coppola directed print ad. In contrast to the stark, peppy vibe of the season's other big collab, the focus in this lifestyle shot seems to be on rich, natural color and dimensional prints. Though of course, what everyone's really waiting to see is Coppola's video for the campaign, which should be making its way to the internet any day now in anticipation of the capsule's March 8 in-store date.
· Sofia Coppola Directs the H&M; x Marni Ad Campaign, Probably Still Won't Wear H&M; [Racked]
· H&M; Announced Its Next Designer Collaboration: It's Marni [Racked]
· H&M; [Official site]
Welcome to the latest edition of Working It, where Racked takes street style to the next level—the office. The litmus test of the true style-savvy is how she (or he) rocks a look on any old day to work. Forget the pedestrian khakis and button downs—these fashionable professionals take the office dress code to a whole other dimension. Quick, somebody call HR!
Photos by Anna Fischer
This week, we take you to where it all began for online shopping site Of a Kind: co-founder Claire Mazur's apartment. In addition to having a special place in their hearts for the original space, the team also has a quite the eye for style: Every week, they feature a new designer on their site, along with limited-edition pieces created exclusively for Of a Kind. And we did, after all, spotlight them in our first-ever Racked 38. They took a break from scouring out the best new designers to show us what they wear on a typical day to work.
Claire Mazur, Co-Founder: For starters: I'll give you ten bucks if you ever catch me not wearing something handed down to me by my Mom or my Great-Aunt (or both). In the winter I dig a short a-line skirt with tights and booties. Showing off my legs helps people know there are some curves happening underneath the three layers of sweaters covering my torso.
Claire is wearing a Society for Rational Dress for Of a Kind Three Way Dress, a vintage Prada skirt "handed down to me by my mom," HUE sweater tights, Belle by Sigerson Morrison lace up booties, a Dream Collective for Of a Kind Sunset Wave Cuff, a Feliks and Adrik for Of a Kind Belizean Ring, and a non-funcitonal Vintage Vacheron & Constantin watch that from her Great-Aunt. "There's no point in me getting it fixed because my phone is my watch."
Style advice: Winter is no excuse to dress like a lazy snowman. Two pairs of tights are warmer than one pair of jeans, and a pair of black booties with rubber soles can handle icy sidewalks and will go with nearly everything.
Yesterday afternoon, we stopped by a pretty serious JCPenney mega-conference, otherwise called the Fresh Air Event. This, we found out, is Penney's way of saying that it's about to go under a major revamp by February 1st. Chief Executive Ron Johnson acknowledge that the store has "picked up some bad habits" along the way, and it's aiming to rid itself of that stale connotation that comes with shopping at JCPenney. The gist of the strategy is this: They're lowering prices to be what they should be, they're doing much fewer promotions, and they're looking to add better vendors and tons of shop-in-shops. Oh, and Ellen Degeneres is their new spokesperson.
So you can keep it all straight, we've outlined some of the biggest plans and put them after the jump. Just so you know the gravity that we're dealing with here, head to their Facebook page and watch the new commercials.
We were scanning our Twitter feed this morning when this apology tweet from H&M; caught our eye:
We’re very sorry about our CS team’s answer, it's unfortunate and we apologize for it. We're in direct contact with Tori LaConsay.
Who the hell is
Tori LaConsay?, we wondered. Turns out, she is a 32-year-old Birmingham-based illustrator and designer who probably just got her work ripped off by the Swedish company.
Two dresses from Doo-Ri Chung's capsule collection for Macy's Impulse
Despite the hooha high-low designer collabs have been known to cause, the actual clothing doesn't always translate into real life, so much. So it's nice to note that Doo-Ri Chung's capsule for Macy's Impulse is not just pleasantly affordable, it's also totally wearable.
If there's anything more highly anticipated than the actual pieces from
Karl Lagerfeld's new
KARL line, it's finding out whether the inevitable shitstorm of traffic is going to crash
Net-a-Porter's website.
Net-a-Porter is pretty confident it won't. A spokesperson told us:
We pride ourselves on meeting tremendous demand on a daily basis. Introducing a brand like KARL is likely to generate unprecedented traffic so we have strengthened the measures we take to protect against lapses in service and have high hopes that we will be able to provide a seamless customer experience for all those wishing to buy from the collection.
