Missoni x Target Madness

My sister and I had been working ourselves into a tizzy over the Missoni madness the last few days as we counted down the minutes to the launching (today) of this latest designer collaboration with Target. When I landed in LA just after 9pm local time last night, my sister IM’d me that the online release was pushed back till 8am eastern time on Tuesday. Which meant a 5am wake up call. Insanity. By the time I got to bed around midnight, I set the alarm for 6.30am, thinking that would give me enough time to surf a bit before heading out to the store. Do not know how it happened, but at exactly 5am my time, my internal alarm clock woke me up. I booted up my laptop and saw that my sister had already found a few things online. It took about ten minutes to get into the Target website. And then it crashed. I saw another email from a dear friend in NY who’d also had some luck online. Around 5:30am I gave up and went back to bed.

An hour later I woke up, immediately debating which of the two stores I should hit first. There’s one that’s closer to me, about 7 minutes away, though the voice inside my head reasoned that I should drive to the one 25 minutes from here since it’s not located in a particularly fashionable area. But the traffic going there could be tricky and it could easily take an hour. So I take the easy way out.

There’s already a small crowd at both main entrances at 15 minutes before opening time. As the lights turn on in the store, my crowd has built to 75-100 people strong. I’m wondering if I can outrun that poor woman who’s here with her baby stroller. As we’re all standing outside looking in, we can see the salespeople milling around the Missoni displays, laughing. I desperately want the black/white zigzag sundress one of them is holding up in the air. It looks like an XS. Hands off my dress, lady! Finally, a brave employee comes out to the door to face the restless crowd. And off we go!

Within ten minutes all the shelves were emptied.

I have to say, short of last year’s Black Friday experience, I’ve never been so emotionally and physically wiped out in such a short time before. The crowd is like a tornado blowing through the store. One second your eye spots something Missoni and the next it is gone. People seem to grow extra arms and hands in front of my eyes. I am fast to grab the things I want, but others are definitely faster. I never find any of the beddings on the top of my list. Sigh. I’d like to know why some people need to have five of the same blanket in their carts. But heck, speed is the name of the game at these sales. No one likes a whiny sore loser.

So I head out to the next Target…the one I tell myself I should have gone to first…and hit lovely LA traffic. Gah.

But I manage to find a few more items here. Based on what I see here now an hour and a half into the sale, I know I definitely made a tactical error. I should have come to this location first, traffic and all. But still no Missoni luggage in sight. So I hit the third store on my way home. I’m beat and I could really use a peach bellini right now. But check out my loot, including a few clothing items that will look really cute as layering pieces.

I’ll post modeling pics of the clothing I managed to score in the next entry, which I hope to post later tonight. I think I need a nap first :D.

September 13, 2011