Excellent poem. This incident bothered me more than I expected. First, because the Missoni print is the ugliest thing I can think of to adorn, well, anything. Second, because it became important enough to create a stampede at Target at a time when millions cannot feed themselves and, I suspect, some of the stampeders are among them. Crazy.

Lezlie

thanks lezlie. I think it needs a little reworking but what else is new? I'll probably leave it alone though. I'm kind of disgusted with the idea of it.

it came when I was reading a little article on big salon about wandering from target to target to buy SOMEthing missoni and it just stuck me that we are simply keeping afloat some overly rich italians who weren't selling enough to their rich buyers.

and it's all about their names. we want some of the gold dust to rub off on us. americans are nuts. in this day and age, when our country can't afford to pay for education or infrastructure because everyone has to have lower taxes, we'll dig deep into our pockets for some uglyass foreign garbage because of their names.

I was going to put up pictures of what they're selling "the people" and compare it to the REAL missoni, which is beautiful stuff, subtle, elegant patterns and colors, very very toney shit. it's like that big ugly garish mizrahi flower junk he sold through target.

whats with the garish shit colors? it tells me what they think of "the people" and what they think of their wealthier patrons. we're assholes.

I am lost here. I haven't seen a TV in days. What did I miss?

People are still stupid, largely and Missoni is ugly crap but it's all supporting my son nicely and it's not wal-mart and I, personally, buy as little as possible (and no ugly Missoni), you can't cure stupid so what can I do? I can rate this, anyway.

ken, missoni is an Italian designer of fabrics, sweaters mostly but they have over time become very diverse. really gorgeous stuff, I've always had a love of their clothing, one year springing for a very expensive tie for the hubbins.

they are known for subtle stripes, patterns, just very very laid back and elegant. but with the economy in the dumpster and everyone kind of sitting on their cash, particularly in europe they needed a big surge of cash. so first they're branching from their boutiquey small footprint to putting stock in some well known high ends dept stores.

then they came up with a lower end line for "us", which is really ugly garbage. a lot of garish striped really ugly stuff and target (of course) debuted it this week. it was so crazy opening day, they crashed the website and cleared out the missoni stock in most of the stores.

so missoni scored a big one for themselves. and americans have some new stupid foreign geegaw to throw away their hard earned money/credit on.

okay, we can do that. but when does it stop, when are we going to throw our money at AMERICANS? at american products and projects?

not this week, anyway.

hey nerd!

yup, I hear what you're saying. I truly hope he never has to darken walmart's dark sucking hellhole door.

oh, i hope god isn't wearing missoni, neither the pricey stuff nor the target version. i don't like their stuff, reminds me of vuitton and those others where the point is always always that everyone *know* that you are wearing it/carrying it/ showing it off. labels on the outside and all that. blech. good poem, though! as, of course, all of yours are. :)

I'd been thinking of selling my blood so's to buy one o' them really boss Missoni emu-hide wallets. But then I wouldn't have anything to put in the wallet. Such a dilemma. Thank goodness I read your subliminal lyrics in the nick of time. Thank you, Monkey. Mwah.

oh zig zag with no purpose, can' t you?
for goshdarn sake,
go to the walmart door & enter &
thou shalt not ever be the same...

transfixed.
you ask:

when are we going to throw our money at AMERICANS? at american products and projects?

soon, but later, after this recovery/recession.
young gals in thailand gotta work!
in india they gotta get with the BritishAmerican empire.
it is all for the Good of the tribe.blood not mine

o terrible burden

not mine

orders to fulfil damn it!

damn! this

endless waiting wanting

we are unworthy ..
be a worthy wanter. i guess...sorry no advice, arg.




.

"the America of want and / wanton descending fire"

"O Heavenly / glory/carrot on a stick"

Hadn't read of the incident (haven't read of anything lately), but it sounds pretty bizarre. Missoni is the lioness, I guess. We are merely prey on the fields of the Serengeti, which, appropriately, is logo'd as a bullseye.

Do love the poem, though. I guess we've reached autumn.

I have worked for some very big brands. Stuff like you've pictured here is handed over to licensors, who work through the details of transferring brand identity to coffee cups, napkin holders, makeup bags. Yes, it's typically crap.

But brands deliver something other than quality products; they deliver a dream. Buying the keychain with the zig zag pattern connects the consumer to a dream of beauty, of luxury, despite their inability to afford it via more elevated products. Either way, it's all smoke and mirrors.

Candace, if there's an entity up,down, wherever s/he/it's holed up in their comfy chair I figure them to be either naked as a jaybird or wearing a nice stretchy lounge suit, something soft comforting the ass through an eternity of sitting and watching us and writing it all down. :)

Matt, they killed all the striped emus? that damned degenerate berlusconi strikes again!

James, I am saturated in unworthiness. I just hate being reminded of it all, especially by foreigners. If all it takes is a pair of zigzagging ill fitting undies, then by gum, I'm willing to give food for a few days to find glory! a girls gotta have her priorities.

Pilgrim, it's incredible. most of the stores were cleaned out in a matter of hours. they crashed the online site first day as well. and now it's all but sold out.

the thing is, this is UGLY stuff, mean evil fugly ugly, bad joke ugly. look at real missoni and then look at this jumbled crap. real missoni is subtle, earth toned or very very couture, well thought out and very italian.

this stuff is like cynthia rowley gone color blind and maybe glaucomic. and it's super hard edged geometric, very unattractive AND expensive, particularly for target. at least 30% more than it should have sold for imo.

as I see it we have inadvertently financed another batch of wealthy people who could have dug down into their own pockets to kept their floundering businesses afloat. this time though, they're foreign owned: target is french and missoni is italian. with instant money transfers, all that money is flying happily across the atlantic as I type.

monsier, you are quite accurate. this is most definitely about image perception, coupled with aspirations AND poor taste. I'm all for enhancing one's image and enjoying a little upscale fantasy. but as I wrote above, this is a fugly line and quite nearly a practical joke.

"You like missoni but don't have a few thousand euros in the budget for one of our fabuloso sweaters? here's some garish junk with our name on it, quite obviously lowrent missoni because there's no mistaking any of it for boutique missoni. per favore, don't forget your wallet! grazi!"

unless they're a molto malnourished american girl with no breasts or hips they are going to look like fat lumps with exclamation points. and the house stuff is not something you'd want to wake up to in the morning and feast your eyes upon. it's too much like a look Fellini might have used in his fantasy sequences.