I read this article over on Elle a couple of days ago and couldn't resist a reblog! I love Marant and cannot wait to see what gems the collaboration with H&M brings, although I wish that I had more than a student budget to enjoy it on!! She is the epitome of cool and her collections, in my eyes, sum up elegant chic. The Parisian launch party made me so jealous, even just from watching the youtube vid. To me it is the designer label that lacks pretence and makes everyone look good (although of course being a 6ft and a bit stunning model always helps I suppose...). Anyway, roll on Thursday and lets hope H&Ms website doesn't crash too quickly!!
Article source here.
Over the past few years the label has become every model, starlet, and downtown scenester’s worst kept secret. And with Marant’s collaboration with H&M set to hit 250 stores around the world and online come November 14, the secret is officially out. Can she maintain her cult-appeal when she hits the mainstream?
Article source here.
Over the past few years the label has become every model, starlet, and downtown scenester’s worst kept secret. And with Marant’s collaboration with H&M set to hit 250 stores around the world and online come November 14, the secret is officially out. Can she maintain her cult-appeal when she hits the mainstream?
The collection, an assemblage of greatest hits
from Marant’s past runway shows (as well as, for the first time, kids and
menswear) should have women lining up outside H&M doors for days (or at
least overnight). At the Paris launch event, party goers were
allowed to pre-shop the collection at a pop-up shop. One girl convulsed in sobs
on her way in. When ELLE posted a photo of the collection on Instagram, the
post racked up comments like: “I'm taking off from work just to get the goods!!!”
and “Dying. Can't wait.”
“I don’t want to be a rockstar,” Marant said at a recent
press preview of the collection, referring to an incident when she was
recognized and mobbed at the airport. But it may be too late for that.
In her nearly 20 years in business, Marant has obviously
created something that resonates strongly with shoppers. The Wall Street Journal reports that
sales have increased at 30 percent each year she’s been in business, even
during the recession. So what’s in her secret sauce?
“She launched [in 1994] just when big brands were
building their businesses on logo-driven products. In contrast, everything she
did felt really personal because it was based on lifestyle choices versus
status-driven concerns,” Anne Slowey, ELLE’s fashion news director points out.
“It was as if she were offering every covetable vintage find, only updated into
modern-day must-haves. But because her designs really are about the girl and
not the label, it's a classic case of the girl wearing the clothes rather than
the reverse. There's nothing cooler than that.”
Jen Mankins, owner of popular Brooklyn chainlet Bird, has
been stocking Marant for six years, and her highly discerning clientele can’t
get enough. “The clothes are very wearable and easy--made for living life and
not being too precious,” Mankins says. “I think customers now have memories of
wearing something of hers all the time, because they just become wardrobe
staples, so you want to go back to her again and again each season to find new
favorites.”
If you ask Marant, she says it’s as simple as designing
the clothes she’d like to wear herself. “I'm a consumer as well, and each
season when I start a collection I ask myself, 'Oh my god, again another
collection, there are so many clothes everywhere… what will make the shopper
say I'm going to buy this rather than that,’” Marant tells ELLE.com. It’s the
kind of thinking that churns out hit after hit--from the now ubiquitously
knocked off wedge sneaker to the cropped printed jeans. “Sometimes you have
this magic moment when you can really achieve something that is a hit,” Marant
says. “And, generally, when I'm doing it, I know when I really make something
that is strong because I cannot wait to have it.”
Of course, the problem then becomes that everyone wants
“it” (like those aforementioned wedge sneakers). And since most of the young
women who lust after Marant’s designs can’t afford the prohibitively high price
tags attached to them (the sneaks cost nearly $700), they turn to the fast
fashion retailers who knock off Marant’s designs. When asked about being
copied, Marant says bluntly, “I hate them.”
By teaming up with H&M, Marant says she hopes to give
her fans something they can afford as well as curb some of the copying. “I've
been so much copied by this kind of fast fashion, so [the H&M
collaboration] was also a way for me to say, ‘Okay, I was at the origin of
these designs.”
Sure, by collaborating with H&M, Marant risks giving
up some of the “it” factor and exclusivity that her high-priced line affords.
She’ll be more exposed than she’s ever been before. It’s a big step for the
laid back designer, who is even quite shy about doing interviews. But she's
also undeniably ambitious. Even if she doesn't mean it to be, the Isabel Marant
brand is a force. And bringing it to the masses might just make it unbeatable.
