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Vera Wang Wants to Sheath Hipster Nether-Regions
Saks, Bloomingdale's, Nordstrom, and Lord & Taylor are hardly bargain-basement stores. But anyone who's had to buy a Vera Wang dress for a wedding will be shocked in October when they get a look at the price-tags on Ms. Wang's new line of lingerie.
Of course, a month before that Ms. Wang will already have jumped into the pool with all the other big-name designers doing lines for budget stores; hers is for Kohl's.
"[Vera Wang products are] perceived as so high-end nobody can afford them," she told a reporter from Brandweek earlier this month. "It's very elitist that only certain people can afford those clothes and have places to wear them [like on the red carpet]. That's not me. In reality I've always been more of a democrat. I want women to be individuals and who they are as people. I feel like a very lucky girl that Kohl's is allowing me to reach a wider audience."
At a show for the new line of lingerie Ms. Wang's vice president of sales for lingerie put it a bit more baldly:
"Of course hipsters are very important," said Mollie Cutillo, vice president of sales for Vera Wang Lingerie. "The customer is young, or at least young at heart."
For under $100, hipsters who shop at Bloomingdales and Saks (?) will be able to pick up her new base line lingerie collection, which includes soft feminine cotton and chenille babydolls, bubble slips, foundations, robes and even tops translatable into day wear. The looks are based on the higher-end items in the accompanying Luxe collection.
That collection will retail from $165-$375 and features silk, silk georgette, and silk charmeuse in intricate and delicate patterns: a babydoll v-neck with an empire waist; really long wrap robes; a bubble silk camisole is a delicate find under any blouse. There's not a lot of lace here, just to draw attention to some intricate details here and there.
Both collections favor contrast details like hand embroidery over the otheriwse popular tone-on-tone detailing. The new foundation collection, launching in July, is heavy on bustiers for Wang's already established A-list bridal and evening wear consumers.
"[Ms. Wang] felt like it was definitely a natural, next evolution," Ms. Cutillo said. "It makes sense if she's dressing the girls on the outside with her bridal gowns, and all that stuff obviously starts from underneath, foundation is just a given. When you're paying $5,000 for a dress it starts with the bra that's underneath it."
The Elusive White Shoe
When, after two days of shopping, I failed to find the magic shoe, or any white sandal for that matter, I began to wonder. Where were all the white strappy heels? Had they gotten dirty? As I grew increasingly impatient with the shoe hunt, I asked a salesman at Nordstrom in Los Angeles. read more »
Starbucks, Microsoft … Nordstrom?
The high-end retailer has reportedly eyed many properties throughout Manhattan throughout the years, to no avail; if built, the Battery Park City location would be its first store here. read more »
But don't hold your breath: Nordstrom's flack says there's nothing in the works.
-Matthew Grace
