Thursday

MJ and those plastic kitsch 'special items'.....

So I was looking through the Marc Jacobs website and found under the title "Special Items" all the weird plastic-y 'made in China' accessories that I saw last night at the West Village boutique. Now I tried to do a little research on this and I can't really shed much more light on it, other than my opinion....the collection of items varied from all sorts of kitschy plastics like initial key chains, "stinky rat" key chains (a little plastic rat w/Marc Jacobs written on it), a band-aid pack/whistle (plastic w/Marc Jacobs written on it), a pen shaped like a lipstick (???), some resin rings (3$), resin heart pins (8$)...and the list goes onnnnnn. A bit strange, it was kind of like "Marc Jacobs does H&M"....In retrospect a lot of his items are now made in China, which to me is a sign of quality going down-hill...poor stitching, ill fit...etc. I don't know, I suppose some of these things were kind of fun, definitely affordable, but I'm just not sure what the point is?? I couldn't get any photos, but if you are further intrigued check out "special items" on the MJ website and you can too can see the "stinky rat" key-chain. Oh yeah and the best.....this canvas bag for 12$ which has written on it (and I am not making this up), "Jacobs By Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs in collaboration with Marc Jacobs for Marc by Marc Jacobs". What?? I don't get it. That's just too many words. Its not clever, just annoying.

Anyway. Point? I'm starting to think MJ is selling out with this off-shoot...the quality is just not there, and the mass quantity of these things is scary, I felt like I was in a dollar store.

Personally I like quality, unique items of beauty, not mass-produced plastic kitsch 'made in China'.

On that note I did enjoy the Fall 2007 collection show, I like simple, tailored lines though it was quite dark/somber feeling.

P.S. I promise to post some pretty things today, no more critiques for awhile.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi !
I'm a huge fan these special items by Marc Jacobs!
Do you know, if there's any left in one of the NY shops?
I'm french, and have planned to visit NY in September, so hope there will be some ...