Peter Pilotto for Target

Great excitement on opening my emails today – Peter Pilotto has done a range for Target. Woo hoo!

I’ve been obsessed with these clothes since I first saw their exquisite (and much imitated since…) digital prints in London Fashion Week reports five years ago – and I say ‘their’ because despite the singular name on the label, the clothes are designed by two men, the eponymous Mr Pilotto and Christopher De Vos.

Their biography gloriously encapsulates the global nature of modern high fashion: Pilotto is half-Austrian, half-Italian and De Vos is half-Belgian, half-Peruvian. The designers met whilst studying at Antwerp’s Royal Academy of Fine Arts in the year 2000. The label is based in London’s groovy East End.

From my first glimpse of them Peter Pilotto clothes joined the rank of the elite ranges I sneak into Liberty and Dover Street Market to stroke and sigh over. (Lanvin is top of that list…). These pics are from his spring/summer 2012, which was a particular favourite.

I treat them like museum artefacts to be appreciated, admired and adored, but which I could never buy. The dresses are around £1000, skirts £500.

So I’m thrilled to see that they’ve done a collection for Target, which will go on sale on February 9th. If the quality of my Philip Lim for Target sweatshirt is a benchmark, these will be worth having. The Philip Lim for Target dress at the top of the post will sell for US$69.99. Sweet.

Here are some of my favourite items from the Target collection and  you can click on this link for the full look book, as it appeared on Fashionista.

http://fashionista.com/2014/01/peter-pilotto-target-lookbook/

Some of the shapes look tricky to wear the way they’re styled here, but I can see great potential in the simpler pieces (how could you go wrong with a pencil skirt in one of those prints?) and I simply adore the tote bags.

Of course, if you live outside the US getting hold of the gear will be more of a challenge. Target doesn’t even exist in the UK and the Aussie stores didn’t get the Philip Lim range – so it will be a matter of begging US-based pals to shop for you, or accepting, as I did last time, that you’ll have to pay a little over the odds on eBay.

Or you could plan a little Stateside shopping vacation ha ha ha, although I’d rather pay more and not have to endure the mob scenes these designer ranges create when they are dropped into chain stores. Ugly.

And just to show why you should care, take a look at the last Peter Pilotto show at London Fashion Week last year.

http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/designers_profile.aspx?DesignerID=395