Target Announces Crowdsourcing with Who What Wear

Hillary Kerr and Katherine Power will kick off an ongoing partnership with Target to introduce a month-by-month collection of apparel and accessories.

Target has announced a partnership with Hillary Kerr and Katherine Power of the website  Who What Wear  to kick off an ongoing partnership with Target to introduce a month-by-month collection of apparel and accessories.   According to Target’s Bullseye blog,  “Each collection will fuse Hillary and Katherine’s foresight with input they’re gathering from their followers and Target’s guests.”   So sounds like crowdsourcing of fashion at Target via Who What Wear‘s social media following?   To me , this is not exciting or groundbreaking, it’s Target trying to sell more goods by reaching the readership of a popular blog/website.  Nothing wrong with that as a marketing plan.  But if you’re going to ask people what they want, then as the Kinks say, be prepared to give the people what they want.  I will be surprised if Target can actually do that, especially based on how their plus-size collection Ava & Viv  is being received by customers.  

With few exceptions (Phillip Lim and some of Altuzarra)  fashion is not a core competency of Target.   Every now and then, I see them produce some interesting replicas (Michael Kors style shoes and DVF style wrap dresses) , but overall, I find their fashion brands very disappointing.  It will be interesting to see what they produce with the marketing klout of Who What Wear  behind their products.  Stay tuned as this partnership evolves, look for the collab to launch in February 2016 and feature blazers, dresses, skirts, flowy tops and light jackets.