Missoni For the Masses

I see your cheap new Missoni and raise you a vintage deadstock Mary Quant.

I meant to make this post when I got my treasures in the mail from the U.K., but I've been super busy since the first day of October.

I was excited about the Missoni for Target collection and was surprised like everyone else when it sold out nearly in its entirety in a matter of hours. At first I was pretty upset, thinking I might have splurged on a skirt or dress, and that I had at least wanted a pair of the zig zag tights. But the more I browsed Target.com, the more I realised that everything was overpriced and that the quality was crap. I didn't feel too bad anymore.

It's almost appalling that a long-standing Italian fashion house known for its creative use of textiles could stamp its moniker all over something that looks and feels like your basic, generic, Made-in-China Target merchandise. It's shameful, and the fact that people busted out the Black Friday moves to clamber for it anyway is just more proof that the average American is a blind consuming machine incapable of thinking for itself.

I started looking for other similar zig zag-patterned items online but didn't turn up much. Then I decided to find something better, and started searching for other top designers of the 60's. This is what I came up with:

These vintage deadstock lace Mary Quant bodysuits are from the 80's. With shipping from England, I paid about $7 each for them on eBay. I know these pictures aren't very good, but I have an awesome outfit planned out that I'll post later. :3

So who's Mary Quant? Well, Mary Quant is one of those forward-thinking people who comes up with great ideas perfectly appropriate and just a bit revolutionary for their time. She was an important part of mod and pop art, taking credit for helping to invent the miniskirt and cultivating an image that was all over popular media until the 80's. I could go on, but you could just Google Image and Wiki the rest. Please do, especially if you're looking for inspiration.