Design Influences for fashion and home

Not having seen the last screen on the video, I rushed to the nearest Target store to the see the "Liberty of London" Collection. You can imagine my disappointment when it was not yet in the store. I was anxious to see it because I noted in my trend report that influences were leading to classic designs, floral patterns and oversize scale. The Liberty store is always one of my first stops on any trip to London This is how the producing agency describes this collection on the youtube.com site: "Outrageously intricate Liberty patterns are featured on the fashion and home décor or inside the garden, becoming truly iconic through the use of oversized scale and giving the viewer a look at the products in a uniquely modern way."

My trip was not wasted, a trip to Targee is always an object lesson in design. The cheap-looking bizarre Goth remnants of the Rodarte collection were in evidence on various racks - this collection was certainly no replacement for the successful and on-target Isaac Mizrahi Collection. In his collection of several years ago, Mizrahi took simple tees and gave them a neckline that took them out of the ordinary - mading them fresh and special. Each of his pieces updated classics with a simple tweak. That is good design for the Target market - as a matter-of-fact that is a philosophy that works for any market. Most consumers don't want to look like those oddballs coming down the runway, nor do they want to look as dowdy as this week's killer professor.

The Rodarte Collection rather reminded me of the baby collection that Philippe Starck designed for Target several years ago - just simply wrong. There is more to the design process than simply hiring a "big name" and thinking that is enough, the consumer is amazingly design savvy these days...yes, that includes the Target customer. I predict that the Liberty of London Collection will be successful because it beautifully taps into today's zeitgeist.