Monday, April 27, 2015

What's the deal with AVA & VIV?

With much fanfare, Target announced a new plus-size line in January called AVA & VIV. This was hot on the heels - meaning about a week - after they had announced the Lilly Pulitzer for Target collab with the disappointing caveat that Lilly plus-sized clothing would ONLY be available online (and not in stores). It almost seemed as if they tried to appease outraged Lilly-loving/plus-size customers with the announcement of AVA & VIV. But guess what? I don't think AVA & VIV is selling well. At all. Take a look at this pic I snapped in store yesterday. This is a fully packed rack (both sides) of AVA & VIV clothing, now marked to 30% off. And there are at least 2-3 other racks of AVA & VIV at full price, and the stuff is just NOT moving.

From what I've seen, the clothes are cute enough, but nothing special. Is that why it's not selling? Is it too trendy for Target? Or not trendy enough? Whatever the reason, I think The Bullseye has a problem on it's hands here.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

At 5'4" and a size 16, I straddle the line between straight and plus size. At Target, I easily fit size 16 and XL, so I really don't HAVE to shop the plus department there. Most of things that I saw in the AVA & VIV line, while cute, I had already purchased from the straight size department.

I follow a lot of plus size bloggers who blogged when this collection was launched and I will have to say, plus size women can be some bitter bishes. They complained about everything. Not enough color, too many patterns, too much polyester, the department was right next the maternity line, the clothing is too expensive. It's almost as if they just refused to go into the store to even look at what is offered. If Target winds up pulling this line due to lack of interest, the next complaint will be "Target doesn't want us in their stores, we need to boycott them."

As I always shop Target clothing from the clearance racks, I'll go back and see what I might like to get from AVA & VIV.

Unknown said...

Sorry if this double posts, I'm having Google issues.

I mostly found these clothes to be boring! It's mostly solid colors with some stripes here and there. The items are t-shirts or t-shirt dresses, which I could get at Old Navy. The tops are baggy on top-I actually have a waist I want to show.I thought about some black and white patterned shorts, but the material looked faded already. I may buy the long striped maxi dress, but I didn't want to pay full price for a t-shirt dress. It just didn't seem special enough to warrant the wait. What I'd like to see are clothes I can wear to work!!

Target Addict said...

Thanks for your insights, ladies! and Diane, you bring up a great point; there is a real lack of affordable office attire for plus size women, isn't there? I'm afraid that's a niche that Target isn't going to fill.

Mel said...

I am plus size Target shopper. I mainly shop online. I ordered about 8 different things from this line and only kept 3. I kept two of the tanks - which I am actually going to use for summer PJ tops. And I kept the Twill Jacket in Apple Green which I really liked. I like the color especially and it fit well. I ordered all the same size and they really fit differently for each item. I do agree with others that this line is pretty boring. It seems to be very basic. I did like that they offered swim suits, but I don't need one now.

Love your blog!

judy3962 said...

If Target really wanted to make their plus size customers happy, all they needed to do was extend their already cute regular sized clothes into plus sizes. There was no need to create an entirely new line.