Cyber Monday Super Deals

In what is probably gonna be a series of posts to this blog this season here is the lead off deeply discounted set.  These are items that are from this season but are now marked off more than the concurrently running sale:

From the Add Outerwear Collection of down jackets and coats.  This group of coats is now 40% off.  Plus if you add the Cyber Monday sale or any other sale we have running  (hint hint...see Friday's post) you can go as low as 53% off.

If you arent familiar with ADD think of it as a cost effective alternative to Moncler.

Down Jacket with Piping.

Hooded Flannel Down Jacket

Irridescent Puffer Jacket (Unisex)

Il Gufo and Moncler - an Interesting Factoid

Some of you may know Il Gufo.  Most of you know Moncler and that they make a Moncler for kids line which we carry.  Recently Il Gufo opened up a store in the United States on Madison Avenue, which you can read about here.

What you might not know is that when Italian representative from Moncler came to visit Tuesday's Child they did a walk through our store (which you can do here as well for the most part :-) ) and despite all the brands that we carry, from Armani Junior, to I Pinco Pallino to Burberry, Dolce and Gabbana Junior and Little Marc Jacobs and more, they were the most impressed by the fact that we carry Il Gufo.

Interesting?

We thought so.

Sorry, I just don't get it.

With all heinous crimes there crop up copy cat perpetrators.  This should not come as a surprise with regard to what passes for Journalism these days and indeed we have not been disapointed.

Friday NY Magazine came out with this odd missive stating as follows:

Quote:

Confirmed: Designer Kids’ Clothes Are Silly and Probably Not Worth the Price

• By Charlotte Cowles

Pricey designer kids' clothes are ridiculous for many obvious reasons (who would spend more than $1,000 on something that might get pooped on, or worse?), but it's a rapidly growing industry regardless. According to today's Times, last year Burberry sold $91 million in children's clothing, up 23 percent from the previous year; meanwhile, lots of luxury brands like Oscar de la Renta, Lanvin, and Fendi have recently launched kids' lines. 

Mini versions of anything — shoes, clothes, dogs, purses, furniture — are always irresistible, so it makes sense that people with money to burn would want baby-sized duplicates of their own designer clothing. But according to the Times, a lot of these pieces aren't even made very well. According to children's wear designer Rachel Riley, “Some of their fabrics are mediocre," and the clothes aren't tailored properly for kids' proportions. Also, is it even ethical to treat a child like a designer doll? The Times reports:

[Riley] remains fixed in her view that children should be children and not little brand ambassadors or, in the current parlance, “prostitots.” She said: “I can’t bear advertising on children. And why would a child need to have anything remotely sexy? To me, it’s unethical.”

If it's any comfort, the clothes will probably get too small or covered in ketchup before they can do much harm.

End Quote.


I find this quite odd and no doubt laced with hypocrisy from the same people that carry 2-5 thousand dollar bags which they change season after season, and womens fashion that runs in the thousands of dollars yet has a usable shelf life of no more than six months if that much.

Quality kids clothing on the other hand has multiple use in one family with overlapping children (two of the same gender a few seasons apart) and can be passed from one family to the next.  Try doing that with your typical department store inferior grade product.  I am not being snobby, I am being factual.

But let's anayze Ms. Cowles on the merit of her words like we've done with the Moncler bashing last week:

Ms. Cowles states:

"Pricey designer kids' clothes are ridiculous for many obvious reasons (who would spend more than $1,000 on something that might get pooped on, or worse?)"


Umm...was there any research done into this or did Ms. Cowles simply take the word of the NY Times "Journalist" and assume that all children's designer clothing is 1000 dollars and more?  To be sure there are 1000 pieces but most designer kids clothing is in the 50-100 dollar range for sportswear and 200-350 for dresswear.   The 1K pieces are few and far between and are rarely purchased for anyone besides celebrities.


"Mini versions of anything — shoes, clothes, dogs, purses, furniture — are always irresistible, so it makes sense that people with money to burn would want baby-sized duplicates of their own designer clothing."


Silly.  Just plain silly.  More than that it just illustrated that the author did little in the way of research but relied on the little that was fed her.  To set the record straight, MOST designers do not simply miniaturize what they do in the large for the small version because let's face it, the woman that spent 5-10K on her evening gown does not want to be seated next to a mini version of herself that her co workers daughter is sporting.  It aint happening.  I fact I once had a mother in our sales store try on a Pinco Pallino dress for an event for herself and when she asked me if it fit I said yes but bear in mind that when the daughter of the woman sits down next to you with the very same item you will have a heart attack and die.  She didnt take the dress.


Only recently has there been a "Mini-Me" movement but its limited to one or two pieces a season and just for the sake of "Mini-Me".  You will see patterns or fabrics that were shown in one or two seasons past make their way to the kids version of a Baby Dior Item or a Little Marc Jacobs or Even a Cavalli Angels or Devils piece but usually not until it's a "has been" for the adult.  Besides as Ms. Riley correctly states, women and kids are shaped differently and most women dont want their kids to dress like women.


Now for the Professional Opinion:

According to children's wear designer Rachel Riley, “Some of their fabrics are mediocre," and the clothes aren't tailored properly for kids' proportions. Also, is it even ethical to treat a child like a designer doll? The Times reports:

[Riley] remains fixed in her view that children should be children and not little brand ambassadors or, in the current parlance, “prostitots.” She said: “I can’t bear advertising on children. And why would a child need to have anything remotely sexy? To me, it’s unethical.”

I will be honest with you.  I didn't know who Rachel Riley is until I googled her.  I attribute my ignorance to the fact that her look as evidenced on her site is something that we dont carry at all in TuesdaysChild.com or in the store.  We do kids designer brands, she does her own style of vintage dresses.  But armed with this knowledge I will present to you the following question with regard to the criticism of Ms. Riley as consultant for the NY Times article and Ms. Horwyn.  How and why for that matter do you take the word of a children's clothing designer with regard to the mini version of Haute Couture when she herself produces what she thinks is the cats meow in vintage styled dresses? 


I will also state that most of the clothing that we carry as Kids Haute Couture and fashion pieces are 10 times more wearable than the party dresses that Mr. Riley produces as both the parents and the children are interested in wearing the designer stuff and not because of the name but because of the look.  Are some of the fabrics mediocre?  Rarely.  As I mentioned earlier, you can usually pass these items from kid to kid with them washing and wearing wonderfully. And those are the lower priced items.  As for the I Pinco Pallino, Mimi Sol and Simonetta clothing as well as the Baby Dior and others the word that comes to mind with regard to most of these fabrics is and regal.  For every child and every occassion?  Absolutely not.  But a very far cry from mediocre.


Finally, I dont wish to be mean here but I suspect that the staying power of a designer like Baby Dior or Little Marc Jacobs is that much greater than that of Ms. Riley's brand for the reason mentioned above.  


The designer clothing that we carry is not like Ms. Riley in poor taste mentioned, "prostitot"-like.  Rather its very wearable and in 99% of the cases quite fine.  Sorry if thats not what she wants  kids to wear, its just current and children as well as parents also like it when their kids look current.  (When Juicy Couture Kids had the word Juicy across the rump we didnt touch it but they don't anymore and we sell plenty of it because its current and very child like.)


So yeah, kids designer clothing is expensive but if you have the money more often than not its a worthwhile purchase. Certainly a heck of a lot more worthwhile and practical than those 7 inch Loubuotins.  ;-)

Critical Mass - The New York Times

It was hard for me to write that title because I did feel that there was an extra letter therein (and that's all I am gonna say, you will have to figure out which (hint: Its between an L and an A)) but the wife said that I couldnt write what I wanted to so I settle on this Critical Mass.  Websters Dictionary defines critical mass as below.  (interesting that one of the expression that Websters offers as a rhyme is almost what I wanted to write as the title of this post):

critical mass

 noun

Definition of CRITICAL MASS

: a size, number, or amount large enough to produce a particular result <the critical mass of activity needed for a retail store>

 See critical mass defined for English-language learners »

First Known Use of CRITICAL MASS

1919

Rhymes with CRITICAL MASS

atomic mass, Depression glass, electron gas, laughing jackass, optical glass, play-action pass, venetian glass,volcanic glass

In the end I chose this title because I felt that it reflected well on the below article which was overly critical about things that were not correct.

Let me explain.

There is a service called Google Alerts that you can create with Google so that they notify you any time anyone posts on the web, the word or phrase that you specify.  We use it to see who is posting about the brands that we carry.  Last night I received the following alert on Baby Dior:

"That Dress Is So Preschool New York Times Dior had Baby Dior, founded in 1967 (before that, the house made outfits for some of its celebrated clients, like Elizabeth Taylor, who ordered matching tweed suits for herself and her young daughter Liza), but the luxury-goods business, ..."

Naturally I clicked on the link to see what all the fuss was about and was greeted with the article that you get when clicking on the link.  By was I surprised.  As a kids designer clothing veteran of 25 years who was born and bread into the business (we are closing in on 40 years in business) I was hit with a couple of things.  First of all, the author maintains that this is a new phenomenon and that other than the last few years the kids designer business is a new concept.

"Seemingly overnight, brands like Oscar de la Renta, Fendi, Marc Jacobs, Roberto Cavalli, Missoni, Milly and Phillip Lim moved into expanded children’s areas of stores, "

What this means in typical NYT "journalism" sense is is that she just discovered this and if she just found out about this market it "must" be new.  So let's set the record straight on that one.

Tuesday's Child and many other stores like ours have been selling children's designer clothing for well over the "seemingly overnight" stated and even way before the one decade that Ms. Horyn claims these came into existence.  As I mentioned earlier, we are almost 40 years old.  Dolce and Gabbana Junior, Cavalli Angels and Devils, Burberry, Versace, Diesel, etc. are brands that have been around a lot longer than Mrs. Horyn knows.  Granted that there are new designers on the scene, i.e. Fendi Kids, Stella McCartney Kids, Gucci etc, Moncler Kids but the overall concept of designer and imported clothing for kids is older than I am, and not just with Dior.

Individually Ms. Horyn and those that she interviewed proceed to bash certain labels while praising others.

For example, Moncler Kids is on the bash list for the following reasons:

"MONCLER down-filled synthetic jacket, $380 at Bergdorf Goodman. Made in Romania. Puckering at the seams, a poorly matched zipper and uneven filler."

Now, aside from being our sold our best seller in the Moncler Kids Jackets this Spring 2012 season (The in between/transitional jackets from Winter to Spring ) it was, according to my rep, Moncler USA's best seller as well.

But let's analyze the complaints that Ms. Horyn quotes:

Down filled synthetic jacket:  To be clear, all down jackets are synthetic.  That just means that the shell of the jacket which holds the feathers is synthetic.  Have you ever seen a down jacket that didnt have a synthetic shell? What would happen if you filled a cloth shell with down and then it rained?  Ugh... That being said the hand on this series of jackets was like silk.  I guess Ms. Horyn couldn't appreciate that.

Puckering at the seams:  Not sure what this means.  Is a piece of synthetic material that is not rigid (soft to the touch ) able to be stitched so that it creates pockets of down in a manner that the material wont pucker?  I dont quite think thats possible.

Poorly matched zipper:  Dont know what this means either.  The coat weighs only a few ounces.  Exactly what kind of zipper were we expecting?  And the fact that its a light zipper really means nothing.  The zippers have never worn incorrectly or damaged in all the years that we have worked with Moncler.  Quality lasts.

Uneven filler:  This is a weird one and the picture is misleading.  If you press down stuffing and then immediately release it and snap a picture you will see it flat.  But good down puffs right up again and that's what these do because Moncler uses ONLY the best down.  Observe the following video if you will and see how the jacket snaps back to shape immediately after being flattened. You can see that happeneing between 12-20 seconds into the youtube video as it pops back up. As I mentioned earlier the model mentioned in the NYT was sold out so I had to take the remaining piece of a similar jacket to use in the video.

Obviously for whatever reason on her agenda Ms. Horyn was interested in showing that the coat stays flat and shot the picture immediately after flatteneing it.  She or whoever took that shot.  Either way it just aint so.  Uneven filler?  Hardly, the stitching in these coats is done so carefully  so that the filler is going nowhere from the moment its created to the years after its been passed down to the youngest relative you pass it to and with quality items like these, make no mistake, you will be passing it on to others.  

The Moncler coats command a premium because they are a premium product.  In truth luxury items are not for every budget nor for every person and there is nothing wrong with that, despite what the artice maintains.

Now, if you are wondering why have I spent so much time explaining why I disagree with someone when they clearly loved some of the styles that were in that NYT photo shoot that haven't seen this side of the century?

That I cannot answer... ;-)