As you step outside, don’t be surprised if someone tells you they’re wearing Dolce & Gabbana — it might just be their underwear.
For fashion enthusiasts, the dream is to have designer pieces hanging in their closets, but eyebrow-raising prices often stand in the way. The latest collaboration between SKIMS, a brand Kim Kardashian co-founded, and the Italian fashion brand Dolce & Gabbana lets the everyday shopper claim a small slice of the high fashion house.
The collaboration featured bras, underwear and loungewear infused with the iconic Dolce Vita lifestyle. The highly sought-out pieces come with price tags far below original Dolce & Gabbana designs.
SKIMS staples, such as underwire triangle bras and ribbed tank tops, keep their iconic shape, now featuring cheetah print and sleek black-and-white silhouettes. The bras are chic and the sweatpants transformed into flowing lounge pants, perfect for lounging around an imaginary Italian villa.
These collaborations have surged in popularity over the past decade. Last year, Gap and LoveShackFancy pasted daintily feminine, yet notoriously expensive, floral prints to Gap sweatshirts, joggers and jean jackets. That same year, Mugler partnered with mallbrand H&M to deliver customers an intriguing blend of avant-garde fashion and wearable jeans. Perhaps the most unexpected pairing was the 2011 Missoni and Target collaboration — a throwback that can still be spotted on thrift store racks today.
But there’s something unsettling about seeing a classic Italian brand on a reality TV star or an iconic Parisian fashion house on an H&M website, especially when online chatter around the collaboration was boosted by a petty Kim and Kourtney fight on The Kardashians.
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High fashion has hit an all-time low, or perhaps low fashion has reached an all-time high.
The public adores these unorthodox collaborations, eagerly queuing up online to snag a designer piece for a fraction of the price. In fact, the SKIMS campaign was so coveted that the website crashed upon the launch of the collection.
This frenzy around a seemingly basic marketing gimmick has heightened as influencers, content creators and average internet users post and repost their favorites from the collection, give “honest” reviews on the luxury loungewear and urge others to rush to the site.
But this surge of shoppers wasn’t just social media hype. The limited-edition nature of these collaborations tapped into the shopper’s anxiety to load virtual or physical carts with low-grade imitations of high-end clothes. There’s an urgency to grab everything before other shoppers beat you to it.
With the seemingly random collaborations, shoppers get the feeling that this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
Consumer culture has made us feel like we need these items, and the collaborations have done the hard work of plucking an unobtainable fruit and bringing it down to earth for the average shopper.
The SKIMS Dolce & Gabbana robe is priced at $498, while a bathrobe from Dolce & Gabbana comes in at more than $1,700. Although the SKIMS price is still steep for something as mundane as a bathrobe, it’s much more affordable than the original.
By leveraging the collaboration, both high and low brands form a fashion-forward symbiotic relationship. The luxury brand becomes more relatable, with these pieces serving as affordable status-symbols for consumers to buy into the Dolce lifestyle. Meanwhile, the everyday brand gains elevated status, temporarily launching from “mall store” to an exclusive designer brand.
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Is it a win-win for everyone?
Perhaps under it all, the cheetah-printed bra from the SKIMS Dolce & Gabbana collection is nothing but a fake Prada bag on Canal Street. It may have all the allure and “wow factor” of a real Dolce & Gabbana piece, but it lacks that authentic Italian summertime air.
But isn’t it time for high-end brands to make room for the rest of us who can’t afford to buy clothing directly from the fashion house? Thanks to the Skims collection, people can now proudly say they own a Dolce & Gabbana piece, even if it was a $50 pair of underwear.
In an age where consumerism culture has spiraled out of control, these high and low fashion collaborations come as no surprise. Fashion designers may be rolling over in their graves, but at least the average person can enjoy an iota of luxury in their day-to-day life.
