Target Was The First Chain To Master High-End Fashion Collaborations. Here’s How It Pulled It Off.

A large sand sculpture of a whale greets people as they enter the white tent. In one corner, a lobster shack is doing a brisk business in beer and bite-size lobster rolls, as a roving waitress in oyster-shucking gloves offers bivalves out of a shiny metal bucket. At least two women are carrying oars over their shoulders, and several men are wearing navy blue blazers with gold buttons. The scene has all the trappings of an upscale clambake somewhere at a Martha’s Vineyard beach house, and that’s the point. But this is not the beach, unless you can call a concrete plaza outside a shopping mall near the Hudson River a beach. The event, held in lower Manhattan last week, was an invite-only party meant to introduce and celebrate the launch of the Vineyard Vines for Target limited edition collection. (Priyanka Chopra even made an appearance.) The tent, outside the Brookfield Place mall, turned into a pop-up that New Yorkers could shop a week before the collection goes live at Target stores nationwide and online on Saturday, May 18. As with all these types of collaborations, when the merchandise is gone, it’s gone. Read more at Vox.