Neiman Marcus: Luxury in Plus, but not really Couture
Aside from an incident where I cut through a Neiman Marcus on the way to the train and got caught in a strange little loop where the store manager questioned me questioning his Christmas tree (in August) I don’t have much to do with the place. It’s beyond my means and to me appears unintentionally hilarious. Clearly, it’s a store meant for only the top 3% of the world to shop in – who the hell else could drop $2K on a handbag on clearance?
Still, even through my personal amusement, I see a little something there in the terms of cultural change. In this case, it’s the acknowledgment, however subjugated and grudging, that plus size women exist, that they work, that they too have power and that, indeed they are a market factor. If you think in terms of comparison, you could even say that NM is offering its bargains to its plus size customers: few if any items in the plus store when I viewed it exceeded $1000, and most actually stayed under the $600 range.
They’re also a good place to peek to get an idea of whether any major changes are going to filter down to us mall-and-Internet shopping plebians.
Here’s what I’ve noticed:
I hadn’t seen this on the Anna Scholz website, but finding it at NM, I wanted to give it attention. Sorry vegans, it’s made of suede, but it’s a gorgeous look, and given that tencel can now come in the same feel and consistency as suede1 , if the look filters down to the mainstream market it can be done in a way where no one has a crisis of conscience.
Here’s a case where they really need plus size models for all plus size clothing. I just don’t know what to make of this. Prints are risky, but sometimes they work – I have a brown print dress hanging in my closet that proves prints can flatter a figure. This one seems odd, and on the wrong women would be clownish. But it’s materially different from dress styles that have dominated plus fashion since the return of the dress – like the wrap dress- and I’m showing it here because it may well be an indicator of other things to come.
I also pulled this goodie out because again, it’s materially different from other dresses currently on the market. This is definitely a dress that would work better on the hourglass figure type – pears and apples, we’ll have to pick our fruit covers elsewhere – but again, it’s a bit different, especially since the designer did not resort to color blocking.
This is probably our trickle-down preview since Bluefly doesn’t go near the plus size market. If this is what’s coming, I hope we can all live with it!
- with the added bonus of being made from recyclables [↩]