Okay, so this is a pretty funny slash sad story about Josie Natori For Target, the designer collaboration that allegedly launched in stores yesterday – Sunday October 30, 2011. This designer collaboration follows the mighty successful Missoni For Target collection which hit stores for a whole 1 hour on September 13th, 2011.
Looking for Josie Natori for Target, we found Missoni For Target on CLEARANCE and scored BIG time!
The History:
To bring you up to speed, on this particular “Target Tuesday” – comparable to Thanksgiving’s “Black Friday” – that Missoni for Target was first available to the public, hundreds of anxious Missoni fans lined up outside the store excited to shop this much awaited collection. Around 8am when the store opened a stampede occurred with women frantically booking it to the nearest Missoni for Target rack.
Quickly thereafter, the entire limited edition collection had disappeared leaving racks awkwardly empty. Hoping to shop online? Not a chance! Target’s website crashed numerous times throughout the day. End product? MANY ANGRY FASHIONISTAS.
RELATED POST: Missoni x Target – Ooh La La!
Okay, now that we’re all on the same page, you can only imagine how excited we were when we heard that Target was offering another great designer collaboration. Josie Natori teamed up with Target to offer a capsule collection of lingerie and loungewear. YES! Having missed out on the Missoni for Target collection and the madness thereof back in September, we made sure to visit our local Target for Josie Natori. According to online sources, we discovered that there were two other designer collaborations also hitting Target stores: Albertus Swanepoel hats and Dana Kellin jewelry.
The Day Of:
Let it be noted that the night before Josie Natori was to hit Target Stores, we called our local Target store to confirm that the line would in fact be carried in their store. When asked “Will you be carrying Josie Natori tomorrow?” I received the startling answer, “Huh? we have jerseys?” The customer service line proceeded to put me on hold for 10 minutes before finally coming back on the line saying, “we might have it, my manager heard something about it, we might.” Okay, that’s a little weird?!
Loyal Target employee stressing out because they didn't get any Josie Natori for Target in their store
Arriving at Target and excited to view the collection on Sunday morning, my team of 3 pranced into the store. Where is it? Where are the racks??? Running around the store, we asked sales person after sales person, “where is Josie Natori?” BLANK STARE.
Finally, a woman who LOVES her job (and who we now LOVE as well) gave us some help. She let us know that she was so angry because she didn’t have any product. Apparently, it hadn’t arrived. She couldn’t find any boxes in the back. She knew it was supposed to be on the floor, yet there was no merchandise for her to put on display.
After calling around to other stores, she discovered that not only did their store not have Josie Natori, neither did any of the other Target stores except for maybe 1 store that might have a few of the loungewear pieces. But they weren’t sure…nothing could be confirmed.
Okay, startling information. What the heck was going on!? While waiting at the jewelry counter, the woman let us know that we might want to shop Missoni for Target. WHAT?
Missoni is all over the clearance racks. It’s not in one section, it’s all over the store. – The Best Ever Target Employee
You can only imagine how the next 2 hours went. Yes, we found a lot of Missoni for Target on sale and yes, we did buy a lot. Not to be rude, but here’s a video of us leaving the store.
As we finally wrapped things up after liquidating the racks, the woman who had tipped us off about Missoni on the clearance racks let us know, “oh, by the way, I found the Josie! Is that how you say it?” She pointed to one lonely rack with no sign in the lingerie section.
After being in Target for hours, a Target employee notified us that she had found Josie Natori. Notice, no sign. Also notice, the Josie Natori is only the FRONT section of the rack.
She then told us that she was going to go find the sign! At this point, it was around 2pm. So, at 2pm Josie Natori for Target randomly appears in the store, or rather is discovered by a loyal Target employee, and has no sign and not much on the rack either. If I were Josie Natori, I would be P*****!
The Night After:
Feeling really good about our accomplishments earlier in the day – having scored not only Josie Natori and Albertus Swanepoel, but also Missoni – we went to Target’s facebook page to find out if anyone else had encountered a problem at Target.
Our discovery: EVERY SINGLE PERSON who commented on Target Style’s Facebook wall was BEYOND mad. Some vented that they had gone to 3 Target stores (1 person went to 6) and left none other than empty-handed. But what is so frustrating to shoppers is that no one at Target had any idea what they were talking about when they asked about the designer collections!
How is it possible, Target, that this could have happened? After disappointing so many Missoni fans who left empty handed, you follow up with 3 designer collaborations that your stores don’t have and don’t even know they are supposed to have?
Shortly before leaving Target, I noticed someone had found the Josie Natori sign...Notice how the collection does not represent the advertisement on the sign at all. BTW, the gray and striped pants are not part of the collection.
Leaving Target with Missoni, Josie Natori, & Albertus Swanepoel!
Here is my Josie Natori for Target Silkish Loungewear set
Sorry, I had to...Missoni x Target blue zig zag puffer jacket, Rain boots, and scarf; Albertus Swanepoel x Target leopard hat; and Josie Natori x Target Loungewear - all scored in 1 day!
