Two weeks ago, fashion editors, bloggers and celebrities such as Kate Bosworth, Allison Williams and Zoe Saldana packed a Midtown venue for a first crack at the highly anticipated designer collaborations for Target and Neiman Marcus.
With sharp elbows and a five-product limit, the glitzy gals hit the 50-piece collection — endorsed by the CFDA and featuring a whopping 24 designers — in the hopes of snagging branded items like a $49.99 yoga mat from Diane von Furstenburg, an Alice + Olivia floral bicycle for $499.99 and a $29.99 Rag & Bone flask.
It was all covered breathlessly by style blogs, and model of the moment Karlie Kloss was featured in the campaign.
But the holiday collection has reportedly delivered a lump of coal for the retailers, with lackluster sales and loads of leftover inventory.
The effort failed to match the mammoth success of September 2011’s Missoni for Target range, which helped the store’s sales grow 5.3 percent for that month. (The rush for the Italian brand’s trademark stripes crashed the retailer’s Web site.)
“Some of the products were great and attractive, but they cost more than what Target shoppers are used to spending,” says Joanna Douglas, senior fashion and beauty editor for Yahoo Shine, of the Neiman Marcus for Target line.
And it has some fashion
folks wondering if the once-celebrated high/low capsule collections — which used to inspire near-riots among stylistas desperate to nab an anorak designed by Stella McCartney and priced by H&M — have jumped the shark.
“We were calling the Target-Neiman’s-CFDA partnership Collabapalooza, because the concept reached such exaggerated proportions,” says Kerry Folan, the national editor of the fashion and retail blog Racked.
“It’s become very formulaic at this point,” adds Mickey Boardman, editorial director of Paper Magazine and a front-row fixture at Fashion Week. “Everyone does them, and so they don’t really seem as special.”
Even the godfather of collaborations, H&M, reportedly saw its most recent collection with avant-garde fashion house Maison Martin Margiela flop.
According to Page Six, H&M dropped a mint on a star-studded affair to fete its mid-November release, but discounted clothing is languishing on the shelves.
“Getting a Margiela dress for a few hundred dollars is not a good deal,” notes Douglas. “People in middle America on a budget are concerned with trends, but these avant-garde pieces are outrageous.”
Since the high/low recipe started in 2004 — when H&M teamed up with Karl Lagerfeld — it’s been copied many times, with retailers ranging from Macy’s to Target saturating the market. Lately, both stores have even tapped non-designers SoHo boutique Kirna Zabete and quirky Vogue Japan editor Anna Dello Russo to roll out fashion collections.
“Initially, this was such a great idea: getting designer items for less. But as time has gone on, some of them haven’t been that great, and price points have gone higher,” says Douglas.
Recognizable logos or prints seem to be most enticing to shoppers, she adds. “I think Target should do a line with Pucci next. [Shoppers] want obvious pieces, and those are always the first ones to sell out,” she says. “Obviously, everyone would want anything with a Chanel logo.”
Many fashion lovers also say they’ve become underwhelmed by the quality of collaborations.
“A lot of times, you see something and buy it because you want a piece of a collection. When you get it home, you examine the material, see how it fits, and ask yourself, ‘Why did I buy this?’ ” says Douglas, who observed a lot of returns for the Jason Wu for Target line.
The backlash seems to have stung. Last month, amid rumors that Givenchy was set to link up with H&M, the Swedish chain declared it was shelving any designer collaborations for spring 2013.
“We decided to skip it, as we have had so many this year. So it’ll be something for next November,” an H&M executive told the UK’s Telegraph.
Shoppers’ reaction to the announcement was telling. Instead of staging a protest demanding low-priced Givenchy goods, most people simply shrugged.
Folan says her readers weren’t upset by the news. “I think the frenzy has peaked.”
kirsten.fleming@nypost.com