In The New York Times Magazine: Comme des Garçons for H&M

BETWEEN THE LINES:
How the latest high-low fashion hit fits the new shopper model.

This week in Consumed, a look at the recent Commes des Garçons/ H&M collaboration, and what it says about how such team-ups may be adapting to a new role in a changing marketplace.

The underlying trend-logic of this strategy previously turned on the belief in a societal surge toward the finer things — a nation “trading up” into new “masstige” lifestyles. Lately, enthusiasm for that theory has retreated even faster than our credit-card limits…

[Now] it is not so much about the masses grasping for prestige as it is about a rarefied consumer group grasping for deals — or, perhaps, for a form of splurging that seems more socially acceptable while fellow citizens are losing jobs and nest eggs. If new trend-logic invariably demands a fresh coinage, consider frugalitism. (Or not.)

Read the whole column in the December 7, 2008 issue of The New York Times magazine, or here.

Earlier in the week I did a short interview previewing this column for New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth, here.

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