Rodarte Deal With Target a Mistake

Rodarte, which has become synonymous with handcrafted, authentic, extremely well-made clothes, was the last line Erika Kawalek ever expected to do a Target collection. The looks aren’t bad—some, like the leopard-print dress and blue tulle blouse, are rather nice—“but if you turn off your acquisitiveness for a sec and consider what Rodarte represents, their Target collection is a truly depressing move,” she writes on DoubleX.

The self-taught designer sisters behind Rodarte craft clothes with “$3,000 to $12,000 price tags, but nobody calls the Mulleavys elitist or out-of-touch.” Instead, they’re said to be obsessed with every stitch and committed to happy workers—“so I can't comprehend what the sisters are doing partnering with a mega-chain that manufactures in faraway factories. The Rodarte for Target clothes are commodities, the products of grueling and boring shift work.”
(More Rodarte stories.)