My Private Show ... 3.1 Phillip Lim at Target!

Although September 22nd is the first official day of fall, my own personal fall style-season has already arrived. At 5:30 Sunday morning when my alarm went off, my quest for a few fall pieces began with our very early trip to the Big City Target for the 8:00 launch of the Phillip Lim 3.1 collaboration.

For at least two months, I've been seeing the glossy ads for this, even in all the ginormous fall issues of the Big Important Fashion Magazines. Target spent some bucks on this. Articles touted it as the most talked about collaboration since the Missoni debacle of the previous year. (A debacle only for customers who wanted merchandise that was instantly sold out to crowds and never replenished. Target and presumably Missoni did just dandy.) I've been a fan of Lim's really interesting handbag designs for a while, but only a fan as they are generally beyond my budget by a couple of digits. The big deal about the bags for Target is that they are very like his nearly-iconic-It bag-status "Pashli", but not complete knock-offs of his own more rarefied line. More like companion pieces. What a good idea for EveryWoman like me!

At the very same time Dan and I were hustling our sleepy selves into the car so we could make it to town in time to queue up if we needed to, stores in an earlier time zone were already selling out of dresses, sweaters, tops, pants and especially bags. As I'm writing this there are articles like the one in the Los Angeles Times  by Tiffany Hsu, wherein she describes the line of shoppers waiting and the mini-melee that ensued when the coveted handbags ran out of stock and restocking was attempted. Bloggers from the east coast began reporting that handbags where out of stock online and in stores an hour after store opening. The clothes went fast, but the handbags were, as expected, the stars of the show and disappeared even more quickly.

Photo by Erin Yamagata, Uptown Target, NYC ... see street-style pictures and notes by editor Annie Georgia Greenberg at the Refinery 29 site.

We arrived at about 7:50 and pulled in to an almost empty parking lot. At 8:00 we wandered into the store, all by ourselves. We found one lone employee, hanging a few things on a rack that I recognized from the Lim group. There were only about about eight items from the dozens of items available in Lim's clothing line. ( Rats.) No bags. None. (Double-Rats.) As I was picking out the items I wanted to try for size, I chatted with the young woman leisurely putting out the few items from the collection. I asked about bags, and she pointed at a big pile of huge boxes, all packed with the Lim bags, just waiting to be opened.

I need to call the store today and brag on this nice young lady. She obligingly called another very nice young lady and together they opened the boxes as Dan and I watched, effectively giving us a private showing and lavish choice of all the bags in the collection. They dutifully opened boxes until I found just what I wanted. Both colors!

The dress I had my heart set on was there, but after trying it on I wasn't thrilled or even pleased, so I didn't buy it.

The dress looks like it hangs softly on the model in all the ads, but it's made of very crisp, almost canvas-like fabric that stands away from the body in awkward ways. It's proportioned for a much taller woman, and the back of this dress ended at the top of my calves, and the waist about mid-hip. Sad. I love this print.

However, the same fabric worked a treat on a zip-up peplum shell that fit very nicely.

 (Yessss! I bought this, but no pics of me yet ... too tired to try to make photos. So many possibilities to combine it with, 

so watch this space. )

And the print was repeated on a flowy, georgette-like fabric shirt, and I'm happy with the way it hangs from the interestingly cut shoulder. (Happy me. Bought this one, too, and look forward to trying this in several ways. There's a teaser in the title pic at the top of this post.  But for the full treatment ... again, watch this space as well! )

I also bought a navy circle skirt that is just the right length for me, but a mini on the models. Sometimes it works out that way for me, sometimes not.

 The one piece that I really wanted to try on was a navy and black tuxedo jacket, but our store isn't big enough to warrant this item, it seems. Never mind, I'll find one that will probably fit better later on, somewhere else.  (Harrumph.)

After I picked out my pieces, Dan and I wandered around for another few minutes, picking up every-day staples that we usually buy at Target. When we left, there were still no other shoppers for the collaboration. I know it seems a little ( or a lot) silly that a woman my age would be so enthusiastic about a Big-Box experience like this one. In a place where not much of any consequence for the world at large ever happens, these little experiences allow me to participate in the smallest way with other women in the world who look at and think about design, care about the process and don't have the resources to respond to current ideas and dress like we might wish. Just a little good design at a really affordable price comes our way only once in a while, and because it is rare, it has meaning for me when it appears.

So, sad little events like these are what keep me connected to the larger world, even if I'm the only one at the party. Frankly, lucky me. 

I had fun!

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Linking up with the lovey and talented Elena Fey at her Monday Bloom  linky-party today!