Fashion HQ
Jennifer Flaten

Earlier this week I was fooling around, uh, working on the Internet, when I stumbled on a story about a product release at Target. Normally, this wouldn’t get any real attention, but apparently, this event inspired “Black Friday level shopping insanity.” To sum up, it seems that Target offered a limited quantity of items designed by Missoni.

Who is Missoni?” Why would anyone stand in line for 2 hours to buy something with that name? Don’t ask me.

All I know is Missoni does high-end clothes, as in $1,500 an outfit, which, even though I write top quality stuff for this website, is not in my foreseeable budget. If you want to know more about Missoni, you will have to Bing. I can’t help you.

Anyway, said products, which included luggage and patio furniture, caused much website crashing and huge lines. Imagine my surprise when I buzzed into my local Target for cough syrup, yes, I had the appropriate three forms of ID and signed note from gawd to get my cough syrup, and spotted one of the fabled Missoni products. 

Huh, apparently, those of us here in the hinterlands failed to get the memo about how “special” these products were. Maybe we are just a tad bit suspicious of designer products at Target. Maybe we are just cheap, which is likely the answer. 

I know I go to Target for cleaning products, paper towels and the aforementioned cough syrup, not couture. In fact, I am not even sure what couture is, maybe French for overpriced?  To add to the general ridiculousness the item in question was a bicycle, yes, it was a designer bicycle.

Hey, if Lance Armstrong wants to design a bike and sell it, more power to him. I would defer to his expertise in bicycles, but I have a sneaking suspicion that a fashion house that normally specializes in women’s clothes knows zilch about bicycles. Not to mention that the bicycle sports Missoni’s trademark black and white stripes; I would imagine someone riding it would look like they are riding an anorexic zebra.

I can’t understand this craze by designers to branch out. Sure a little diversity is normal. I can see a fashion house doing luggage: after all you need something to put all your designer clothes into and it isn’t too far out to add linens or such to the product line, which is a good use of the leftover fabric from the clothes, but bicycles and patio furniture? That is really stretching it.

Is a designer riding lawn mowers or dryer sheets next? At this point, I realize there is probably a Martha Stewart riding lawn mower, but I am just going pretend like there isn’t. I know they say they are bringing fashion to the masses, but sometimes it is best if the masses don’t attempt to squeeze themselves into the fashion.

Here’s a perfect example, Jennifer Lopez releasing a line of clothing for a Wisconsin-based department store. The clothes are not the problem. Uh, there is no way to put this delicately, but a figure honed on a diet of beer and deep fried cheese curds should never mix with a micro mini and thigh high leather boots. Nope never, come to think of it, maybe the designer bicycle may not be such a bad idea at all. It beats the thigh high boots.