Missoni For Target: Becoming a Fashion Victim

Author: Rusty

The Missoni for Target collection has been hyped for about the last month and a half with a television commercial featuring women in head to toe zig zags in an array of aggressive colors. They were fun, kicky, and a bit retro in that late 60s early 70s kind of way and I was curious to see the clothes for myself when the line launched.


If you’ve been reading fashion news at all over the past week, you know that the line launched to record breaking crowds. Target’s website experienced traffic heavier than it had on last year’s Black Friday and ending up crashing for most of the day. Before lunch, there were a healthy number of Missoni for Target pieces on eBay for more than double the original retail price. I was not able to get to the store on that fateful Tuesday so I figured I was shit out of luck when I got to the store Wednesday. Luckily, because I live in the middle of a bunch of corn fields and cow pastures right now, that was not the case and there was still some Missoni to be found. Sort of.

The Juniors section of our Target had a few Missoni racks set up, containing a handful of items ranging from underwear to ponchos. Some of these garments looked unusually small to me, but I thought that perhaps they were made with stretch and picked out my size and proceeded to the dressing room where my attempt to put on what I thought was a knit tank top was met with much resistance. I eventually gave up on the knits, all of which seemed ridiculously small to me, and tried on a cami top and what I thought was a tunic. The cami top fit beautifully and was super soft thanks to the rayon used to make it. The tunic, I discovered as I hit some confusion trying to put it on, was actually a romper. Because I have a sewing machine this was not actually a disaster and I put both the cami and the romper in my ‘keep’ pile, threw all the knits in the ‘rehang’ cart sitting outside the dressing room area and went over to look at housewares.

Missoni Cami in a women's size small.

Missoni Romper (not for long) in a women's size extra small.

Again, I was facing racks that had been nearly picked clean with a few plates, glasses, and bowls awaiting a sure fate. Knowing that I wouldn’t have time to mull anything over, I selected a large glass serving bowl that was the last of its kind and marbled with several colors that I figured would be easy to match to any future kitchen decor.

Missoni serving bowl.

Upon arriving at the checkout counter with purchases in hand, the checkout lady looked at my Missoni products and told me that they’d be getting in a new shipment of the line on Friday. Encouraged, I made plans to come back Friday afternoon to try my luck again.

Late that night a commercial for the Missoni line came on and I realized that the knit ‘tank tops’ I’d been trying on were actually part of the GIRLS line and so the reason my size hadn’t fit me was because it was designed to be worn by a seven year old. This made me feel much MUCH better about myself, but also made me wonder what foolish person decided to stock the girls clothing in the juniors section when a little girl’s sundress and a tank top for a woman can have such similar shapes to them. Never mind the leggings, which always look about the same size on the hanger no matter who they’re meant for. The point that I’m trying to make is that if there is still Missoni on sale in your area, please read the tags very carefully.

Friday my mother and I went to the Target hopeful that the new shipment of Missoni might have some nice sweaters or dresses in grown up lady sizes. Sadly, due to the massive run on the entire Missoni line from online to in-store, it appears that either the shipment never came in or had completely sold out in the first half of the day. As we looked longingly at some adorable sweater sets for toddlers, a gentleman walked over to us and said “Excuse me, is this line popular in America as well?” It turns out that he was from Russia and was confused as to why a brand he was familiar with as a luxury clothing line was being sold so cheaply in a discount store. I explained that it was Missoni designs, but on synthetic fabric and more cheaply made and he turned a tag over and sniffed “Yes, and real Missoni is made in Italy. Not in Asia where they use child labor.” and walked away from the biggest fashion event to take place in Target with nary a backwards glance.