Dying for Balenciaga, Prada or even Jil Sander? Now you can pay your rent and still get the look at your nearest fast-fashion chain.
More than ever, stores such as H&M, Zara and Topshop are bringing runway to reality with blistering speed — sometimes even before the real stuff hits the market. In some cases, the runway looks are never produced for retail, so chain store knockoffs could even be considered a public service.
PHOTOS: DESIGNER LOOKS FOR LESS
“The turnaround these stores have is really quick,” says Izzy Grinspan, New York editor of the retail blog racked.com, of the proliferation of designer knockoffs.
“The looks are appearing faster and are getting snapped up faster than ever,” she adds. “I think Zara, especially, has a really good eye and knows what’s going to be popular.”
Both stores and consumers have the Internet partly to thank.
“If you’re following fashion, especially in social media, you’re seeing the collection as soon as it happens. So consumers are better at recognizing the looks they’ve seen on style.com,” says Grinspan.
Celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch says fast fashion once lagged behind the design houses because of the technology and luxurious textiles they used, but that gap is closing.
He says he just found a dead ringer for a Céline leather shift dress worn by Jennifer Aniston — at Banana Republic of all places.
And it was only $265.
“Technology and fabrications were the one place that fast fashion couldn’t compete, but now they can,” says Bloch.
Even the physical shops themselves are upping their design quotient.
“The Zara on Fifth Avenue [at 54th Street] literally looks like a beautiful store,” Bloch says. “I walk by and I want to go in there because it feels like I’m in Saks and Bergdorf.”