November 23, 2007

Patricia Field goes all Barbie

Emmy award-winning costume designer Patricia Field is most famous for styling the characters on "Sex and the City", and for turning Carrie Bradshaw into a fashion inspiration for millions of couch-fashionistas across the globe.

Now, in an unabashedly corporate collaboration, Field has teamed up with Barbie-makers Mattel to create a new collection of Barbie-inspired clothing, handbags and jewelry to be sold at her House of Field boutique in New York, at Macy's, and Hot Topic of all places.

Hot Topic is where baby goths and sk8ter girls go to buy their cheap tartan and bondage pants. It came as a surprise to hear that Field was stooping so low on the retail ladder (although she did recently create a pump for Payless...)

You can buy from the collection here.

Field told Fashion Wire Daily that Mattel had approached her with the Barbie idea, and she jumped aboard "because I'm into big brands, because I'm little. Everyone knows Barbie, more than anyone knows Patricia Field, so I was like, okay, I'll go with Barbie!"

Patricia, what can we say...we appreciate your honesty!

The collection launched last week. It contained some truly heinous graffitti print hoodies (headed straight for Hot Topic, we imagine?).

These were counterbalanced by some prettier items, like a black stretch satin '50s sweetheart dress, a leopard-print capelet and metallic handbags embossed with the Barbie logo.

Field is currently heading up costume design for the "Sex and the City" movie, and for Darren Star's latest TV series "Cashmere Mafia," premiering Nov. 27.

A red-haired Patricia Field Barbie doll is in the works for fall 2008.

November 23, 2007 in NEW YORK | Permalink

Comments

It would probably be in your best interest to do some research before bashing any retailer. Granted it would appear that perhaps Hot Topic is not the best venue for Patricia Field, but if you dug a little deeper, you'd most likely have a different opinion. Besides the obvious position of Hot Topic's ranking among other companies(check the stocks often?), Patricia Field is not the first designer to sell through Hot Topic. Most recently Betsey Johnson featured a line of bags and purses, not to mention a long list of celebrity designers(mainly musicians). Hot Topic's sister company, Torrid, has also carried Betsey Johnson, Baby Phat, and many other designers. If you were to compare high end fashion to retail America, yes, it is the low end of the ladder. Perhaps instead you could take this as another great crossover into mainstream, such as Target's line of designer clothing started by Mizrahi and several followers. It's always wise to remember not everyone has the same checkbook, but they can all dress well if they choose to. I suppose stereotypes are always the easiest choice for the ignorant though.

Posted by Take Another Look | Nov 25 2007 5:31PM