Rants
Lady Gaga Scribbles on a Birkin, YSL Makes a $450 Adaptor & That Balmain T-shirt’s Starting to Look Sane
By Britt Aboutaleb
We’re done gawking at Balmain‘s obscenely priced t-shirt, but today we kept shouting, “What?!”
1. Socks in shoes. This is like troempe l’oiel clothing, which we’ve railed against in the past, but why would you buy shoes with socks sewn in when you can buy the same shoe without a sock and choose whether or not to wear a sock? Especially when we’re talking about Bruno Frisonis with four digit price tags—most people will buy just one.
2. Gilt‘s full priced sales. At noon, they launched a week long Helmut Lang sale, and by sale we mean 20 full priced items. Gilt’s VP told WWD, “We don’t want to be another place to go and buy full-price product,” and mentioned that they’re really only interested in doing something special, “perhaps something developed especially for us.” But the collection they’re selling, and the full priced merchandise they’ve sold in the past is actually available everywhere (or everywhere Helmut Lang’s usually sold). So what are we missing?
3. YSL’s $450 adaptor. Seriously? Vogue‘s Senior Accessories Editor “can’t imagine [her] life without one.” We assume you’re paying for the pink leather pouch, but we bet they added on an extra $100 just because it’s stamped with the house’s logo. This probably won’t help Stefano fall under Pierre Bergé’s good graces (though yes, we realize even Pilati probably doesn’t know this exists).
4. Lady Gaga buys a Birkin, a real one, and attacks like we did the soles of our 6th grade Converse.
Tags: Balmain, Birkin, Burberry, Filipa Fino, Gilt, Helmut Lang, Hermès, Jane Birkin, Racked, Style.com, Vogue.com
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The shoes with socks is silly! Indeed why would you buy a shoe with a built in socK? It will be very inconvenient should you want to wash the sock :)
Great roundup.
1. Hate the socks in heels trend. Awkward.
2. Silly all around.
3. Beautiful, but couture adapters? Pfft. I'll save my $ for an iPad or something. Lol.
4. I'm disgusted…Birkin abuse.
I predict the shoesock will go the way of the cartruck.
That's a crazy idea!!!
Good for Gaga. It's just a bag, people. I find it hilarious that this shocks fashion people way more than anything she's worn thus far.
Not to mention that people are flabbergasted by this (and I LOOOOOOOVE Hermes – but consider: no matter how much they drive the elite status up by only making them exclusive to pretty much Hermes boutiques [save for Don Quixote {LMFAO!}, which we found out about yesterday, and a few other VERY select places], and making the waiting list INSAAAAAANE, they're STILL only pieces of leather [gorgeous and immaculate, yes - but leather nonetheless] sewn together), but don't bat their eyes twice at a lot of the horrible things going on around the world currently.
That said, I'm not a very political person, at all, nor do I possess a very deep, probing interest in most world topics, at large, but I'm smart enough to know that Lady Gaga scribbling on a Birkin is not gonna cause the world to suffer some major catastrophe, unlike the recent tragic earthquakes in Haiti, Chile, et al.
Pull up the straps on your Hermes riding boots, drape that Celine cape delicately over your Burberry lightweight summer trench, don your favorite Ralph Lauren newspaper cap, and sign your John Hancock with your grandfather's Montblanc gold-nibbed fountain pen to a check with a bunch of zeros and send it off to some (VALID) organization or charity that can actually use it, instead of screaming the horrors of defiling a Birkin.
Sure, I want one, and no, I'd never do that to a Birkin….but believe me, if I saw someone who did, I'd laugh about it, ask them to buy me one, and then make just an equal contribution to some needy children in Africa or Asia somewhere.
Lighten up, people.
GILT's strategy is to start making collaborations with the designers they've carried in the past, as they've said in a very comprehensive article in the New Yorker, about 2-3 weeks ago (to be fair, one of the best pieces of fashion jurnalism in quite some time). That's where they're heading.
What confuses me though is that GILT has trained its customers to buy deeply discounted designer goods, not collaborations, so it would be interesting to know if the collection sells well or not. They're also offering quite a 'bonus' with each buy from this capsule: an exclusive Helmut Lang tank plus a $50 credit, so they're trying to make it sound and feel as close to a designer discount as possible.
All in all, the merchandise looks good, but 'collaboration' has started to have a bad ring to it after seeing Zac Posen's terrible Target collection, the cheap and so-not-chic Rodarte for the aforementioned, and the impossible to walk in and cheap looking Jimmy's for H&M. Maybe it's just me, but 'collaboration' sounds as a quick-buck for the designer and a raggedy outfit for me, so when GILT, with whom I'm having a sweet love affair, is into this, I can only start preparing an intervention.
it might have been new york magazine, now that i think about it.
Darling….YOU…SAID…THAT.
I was terribly disappointed with the Rodarte for Target collection (it looked VEEERY watered-down, and seemed to draw very little, if any, inspiration from their own runway collections – despite what they said [and yes, I saw the video with Tavi]), and even moreso with Zac Posen's collection. But then again, as fabulous as many proclaim him to be, I've never really been terribly taken by Zac Posen's aesthetic. It's just very decorated, overembellished grandma (Marc Jacobs – though I love him so – being undecorated, not embellished enough grandma). I never got the hype….but the girls love it, so…….
As to the Jimmy Choos…they were ultra-high, unstable, cheap-looking bits of crap. They caught my eye in the window displays, but when I went in to look at them, they looked really horrible. The “leather” looked dry and crepe-like.
Darling….YOU…SAID…THAT.
I was terribly disappointed with the Rodarte for Target collection (it looked VEEERY watered-down, and seemed to draw very little, if any, inspiration from their own runway collections – despite what they said [and yes, I saw the video with Tavi]), and even moreso with Zac Posen's collection. But then again, as fabulous as many proclaim him to be, I've never really been terribly taken by Zac Posen's aesthetic. It's just very decorated, overembellished grandma (Marc Jacobs – though I love him so – being undecorated, not embellished enough grandma). I never got the hype….but the girls love it, so…….
As to the Jimmy Choos…they were ultra-high, unstable, cheap-looking bits of crap. They caught my eye in the window displays, but when I went in to look at them, they looked really horrible. The “leather” looked dry and crepe-like.
It was New York Magazine, and it was a great piece. It definitely made me think twice while browsing on Gilt. I think they're going to have a hard time breaking out of the deeply-discounted-designer-goods niche.
On another note, I kind of liked Gaga's take on the Birkin. It made me wish that someone made temporary tattoos for handbags so I could play with that idea myself.
And seriously, if you want to wear socks with heels, wear socks with heels, but don't buy attached socks. You're giving those gorgeous shoes a very short lifespan if you do.
http://lastnightslipstick.tumblr.com/
Awesome post! Kudos for calling this stuff out!
Amen, amen, amen, and amen. Especially on the last one. I don't care HOW rich or famous you are, you don't deface a Birkin!!!!!
I hope the travel adapter short circuits and blows up the laptop and blackberry of the editor that “can't live without it.”
the actual adaptor looks exactly like one sold by hey's for about $20-$30 bucks….If i was really going to spend so much money on an adaptor holder…I would order one from one of those luxury luggage makers…like goyard or something like that because it feels more special….probably not hot pink ysl, its just kinda tacky
The Birkin-scribbles were (at least partially) done by Terence Koh…and it's her bag, she can do whatever she likes to it.
YSL adaptors? Who'd buy them, except for clueless nouveau riche/people who don't know any better? Advertorial going to the extent of plugging this, is just silly.