Brand on the Run: Obama 2012 “Runway to Win” collection pops up in Chicago June 12
UPDATE From Press Release: On June 12, celebrities, designers and the city’s fashion elite will turn out for a cocktail reception unveiling a new Chicago pop-up shop for Runway to Win, a fundraising effort from the campaign to re-elect President Barack Obama that features low-cost items from 27 designers. The star-studded event will be hosted at the now-vacated Harpo Studios and will feature the work of Prabal Gurung, Marc Jacobs, Jason Wu, Derek Lam, Diane von Furstenberg, Beyoncé and more. The event will be hosted by special guests Vogue editor Anna Wintour, supermodel Iman, Chanel Iman and Obama campaign manager Jim Messina and tickets range from $150 up to $1,000 for access to the VIP photo reception or $2,500 for the photo reception and dinner. According to the event’s Facebook page, tickets were “selling out fast” as of earlier this month — so Obama-loving fashionistas may want to move quickly to guarantee their access to the event.
Originally posted January 13, 2012 as “Fear the vest? Perhaps something from the Obama 2012 “Runway to Win” collection, then?”
We all should have seen this coming.
Even before Rick Santorum recognized that his vest “sort of took a life of its own… and the vest gave me this power” and promptly harnessed that “fear the vest” power into fundraising by selling his geek chic vests for $100 on his website.
Even before the Missoni internet traffic crashed the Target website, before the Versace for H&M collection was so wildly popular it spawned a followup collection.
Maybe it should have occurred to us just around the time Target announced that Jason Wu, the once obscure designer whose career Michelle Obama launched by wearing his fussy white one shoulder gown for the 2009 Inauguration, would be designing a limited collection of dresses and separates which go on sale February 5th. Wu’s advice for getting one’s hands on the collection? “Camp out, I guess?” Wu laughed.
Apart from finding humor in the demeaning act of making poor people camp out in mall parking lots to purchase limited quantity, poorly made knockoffs of his otherwise un/justifiably pricey wares, Mr. Wu is not the first person seeking the benefits of free publicity and brand recognition that comes with partnering with a mass retailer.
There’s a good case to be made that Michelle Obama was the first, most plausibly the day she appeared on ABC’S “The View” in June of 2008 wearing a White House Black Market dress, retail value $150. Political value: priceless.
Since that time, Mrs Obama’s ability to use mass fashion retailers like J Crew, Talbots, and H&M to “connect” with ordinary Americans, while championing high end designers heretofore more accustomed to seeing their clothes on political donors/wives than on any First Lady, has become the international primer for savvy politicians and Duchesses of Cambridge.
For better or for worse, Michelle Obama’s legacy during her tenure as First Lady has been strictly limited to, or profoundly overshadowed by, what she wears. Many of us had expected the Princeton and Harvard educated woman to accomplish more than become the Cheerleader in Chief of the fashion business.
But that is what she has become (thus far), so it should come as no surprise that the fashion industry would see the upcoming election as an opportunity to pay back the First Lady.
Starting February 7th, you will be able to buy shop the Obama 2012 website under “Runway to Win,” an online store “of fashion designers in support of Obama 2012.” Just a click away, 23 designers including Jason Wu, Narciso Rodriguez, Beyonce, Tory Burch and Marc Jacobs have designed t-shirts, totes and other accessories ranging in in price from $45-$95.
Whatever you think of this latest innovation in crossover marketing, at least you can buy some designer “collectible,” without having to camp outside all night.
Think of it this way: Project Runway to Win is slightly more hip (and less expensive) than wearing a Santorum vest and vastly less depressing than watching “When Mitt Romney Came To Town.”
Tom Kolovos is Editor in Chief of aControlledSubstance.com
From Wall Street Journal:
Designer Gear for Obama Raising a Ruckus
Republicans Contend Relatively Low-Cost Items to Be Sold at Fund-Raiser May Amount to Campaign-Finance Violations
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