Missoni for Target… busted.

So I figure it’s my karma for clearing out the 3T section of Tea Collection’s sample sale in San Francisco that I walked away from Target today with nothing but a headband.  I dropped off my daughter at pre-school at 9am, ran home to eat breakfast, drove to Novato, missed the exit, got to Target by 10am and walked through the doors. I caught the eyes of 2 women with full carts, Missoni luggage on top, checking out. I was like, okay, other people are here for that too. Then I was greeted by 5 moms hovering around a red cart filled with clothing scraps. “That’s all that’s left”, they said. My jaw dropped. “What about the home section?” I pleaded. They told me it was cleared by 8:15am – Target opened at 8. The buzz in the store was that the Target site was down but the mobile site was working. More people than I thought wanted this stuff.

I was kinda shocked, but shouldn’t have been. My wedding china is Missoni for Richard Ginori and I use it all the time because my friends and I love it. I wanted some coffee cups that would mesh that didn’t cost $100 per cup. I was so excited when I heard they were doing a line for Target and fell in love with the Lookbook. I was planning to shop it smartly, considering each item carefully without breaking the bank. But if I had gotten there at 8am I’d be forced to clear the aisle without thinking. I overheard a Target employee talking about a woman who filled so many carts that she demanded security to accompany her to the checkout line.

The patterns of Missoni are so striking, I imagine stylists in the Bay Area cleared the home section for magazine editorials to sell us something we can’t have. Or worse yet, Ebay sharks who don’t care about good design  just descended upon the store.

Part II Mother in Law and the West Memphis Three

Okay, so I am obsessed with the WM3 ( just outta jail), and low and behold my MIL who lives in Mississippi who is sucked into any hype in general called me from Target in West Memphis. The full Missoni inventory hadn’t disappeared by late afternoon and asked me what I wanted. She proceeded to describe everything in the toddler section for my daughter. I was dying to scream “Forget that! She doesn’t care about Missoni, go to the Home section and pick out one of everything and I’ll pay you back!”

Okay, let’s calm down. Good graphic design on whatever material or fabric is worth considering. Just about everything I saw in other people’s carts today was pretty amazing and yes, expensive looking in person. A job well done by Missoni. But do people appreciate a good pattern as much without the label prestige? In this case it was both, and a lot of people recognized that the pattern alone was equal to the brand mystique, even at Target.