The youth vote
Target’s latest fast fashion collection comes from Tracy Feith, the Texas-born surf-luxe designer who had a short-lived store on Melrose Place. Feith’s latest claim to fame is that Michelle Obama chose his black-and-purple Japanese garden print dress for the National Prayer Service in January, a ladylike style with a full skirt and three-quarter sleeves.
But Feith’s Target line is more Lolita than first lady. Think super-short skirts, bloomer shorts and ruffled bikinis. Feith is known for his spirited, acid-floral prints and here, some are better than others. A strapless dress with a flowery bustier and tiki-print skirt ($44.99) would be darling on a teenager but too short for most anyone else. And you can find better versions of Feith’s black dress with white lace and a pink flower embroidered neckline ($39.99) in any shop on L.A.’s Olvera Street.
A muddy brown and orange leaf-bark print skirt ($29.99) evokes 1970s wallpaper in the worst way, as does a neon yellow, orange and blue Hawaiian flower-print miniskirt ($29.99). Somehow, though, that print works on a cropped jacket ($44.99), especially when worn over a simple strapless black dress ($44.99).
I was particularly excited to inspect the most expensive piece in the lot, the cropped leather biker jacket, which looked so good in photos. It has a slim fit, is shorter than I expected and is cropped even higher in the back than in the front. Still, at $139.99, it’s a great way to get the boho summer leather jacket-over-a-dress look for less.
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