Target Debuts New Denim...

Target’s team of designers recently went to work to completely overhaul their denim assortment. The result? New styles and revamped fits, fabrics and finishes—comparable to what you’d find at a high-end department store—all for $30 or less.

“Whether you’re dressing them up for work or dressing them down for the weekend, we want our guests to know that when it comes to denim, Target’s got you covered,” explains Julie Guggemos, senior vice president, Product Design and Development at Target. “Our team has obsessed over every last detail, ensuring that when you put on a pair of our jeans, you’ll not only look great, but you’ll feel great, too. And with each pair under $30, I’m confident that we’re offering value that simply can’t be beat.”

According to A Bullseye View, Target’s new denim assortment includes something for everyone. Treatments like whiskering and rip and repair, plus indigo-alternative colors—think white, grey and black—provide options for all personalities. Trendy joggers, overalls and denim skirts—alongside traditional bootcut, skinny and boyfriend styles—provide options for any occasion or body type. And for a limited time, you can get $10 off your denim purchase (either in-store or online at Target.com) with the promo code TRYON10.

The Look for Less: Target vs. Kate Spade

This lookalike find was brought to my attention by a recent post from my fellow blogger The Budget Babe. Today we're looking at two pairs of oversized jet-black "gumdrop" stud earrings. The ones shown on top were first popularized by Kate Spade a couple of years ago, and will run you $38. But now there are plenty of knockoffs to choose from, including the ones shown on the bottom (from Target) that cost just $7.99.

Fab Find: Pair of Thieves Socks

I could have sworn I blogged about this fabulous mens sock brand before, but in searching through my archive I can't find anything. Last Fall I discovered Pair of Thieves socks at my local Target store, and my college-age sons soon fell in love with the crazy, colorful patterns. They also have fun names like "Will I Ain't", "Polar Vortex" and "Bordeauxn't" (shown here).

I was delighted to discover that Target.com has an even greater array of patterns than in stores (where the selection can be spotty at best) and right now, most styles are on clearance for $4,18 (regularly $5,99). And with the discount code EXTRA10, you can get an extra 10% off the sale price, so I've already ordered several pairs for our boys as stocking-stuffers for Christmas.

Target helps you deck your dorm...

Target wants to help you deck out your dorm room with their Made For U College Styler—an interactive tool that assesses your personal style and creates tailored room designs you can shop and customize from your phone, tablet or desktop.

Here’s how the Made For U College Styler works: By tapping into your social media accounts—like Instagram and Facebook—and answering a few basic questions (e.g. “Where’s your happy place?” or “How do you do breakfast?”), the tool analyzes your personality to create a unique room design pulled from more than 400+ back-to-college items. Are you more “Earthy Explorer”,  “Fabulista?” or “Chic Geek?” The College Styler will peg your style and then offer a shopping list to match. Products from brands like Room Essentials and Threshold —such as French bulldog book ends, chalkboard marquee lights and a metal hexagon accent table—celebrate personal flair and act as accents throughout the rooms.

The College Styler even lets you share your results with your future roommate to get them in on the dorm design fun, plus a handy checklist to divvy up who’s bringing what. The College Styler also helps students explore Target’s entirely new line of back-to-college goods like these inventive extra-long twin sheets with side storage pockets shown here (so the phone is never far from reach).

Sale Alert: Sonia Kashuk "Glow" Products

Attention Sonia Kashuk fans! Select products - to help you get your "summer glow" on - are now on sale for 15% off at Target. Offerings include bronzers, illuminators, tinted moisturizers, and bath & body products. Click here to view the entire selection on sale.

Consumer Alert: Target Recalls Circo Night Lights

A fire hazard has prompted Target to recall thousands of night lights that may be in your home. The recall involves about 143,000 Circo brand night lights due to the fact that the battery can overheat and cause the night light to melt.

Target has received two reports of overheating incidents, including a report of a fire that damaged a dresser, wall and plug-in. No injuries have been reported thus far.

The collection includes a blue bird, an orange dinosaur egg, a white soccer ball, a green shark, a yellow rocket and a pink hedgehog. Target stores nationwide and target.com sold the night lights from October 2014 through last May for about $15. Consumers should stop using the product and can return it to any Target store for a full refund.

Target under fire for "Trophy" tee...

Uh oh....Target is in the news again, and not in a good way. The Bullseye is under fire for selling this cheeky t-shirt (shown) which has sparked a backlash online, as many customers are claiming the top is offensive to women.

The black shirt - which has the word “trophy” in bold white letters across the front and costs $12.99 - has many folks slamming the retailer for treating women and girls as objects. A number of customers have been posting photos of the T-shirt, which some say they spotted in the junior’s section, on social media, publicly criticizing what they say is a sexist move on Target’s part. While the shirt has reportedly been on sale since June, it’s only recently gained steam on social media, and one woman has even started a petition on Change.org demanding that Target stop selling the shirt. You can read more about the controversy here on Yahoo!Parenting.

Sale Alert: School Uniforms

Target has a boatload of back-to-school items on sale this week, including school uniforms. Seeing them on sale always makes me nostalgic for the days I used to buy uniforms at Target for my boy when they were in grade school. Back then, Target was my go-to source because they always had a wide selection of uniforms at great prices, and that's still the case today. This week, shop from a selection of uniform separates from brands like Cherokee, Circo, Dickies and French Toast at 20% off.

New in Stores: Ambar

About a year and a half ago, Target introduced Ambar, dubbed "a new line of women’s clothing geared toward the Latina shopper." When it debuted I wondered "what exactly is Latina fashion?", and that's still not totally clear to me. What is clear, however, is that Target is starting to really push this line, as it's now showing up in stores (whereas previously it was only sold online). While some of the styles (like this printed sheath dress) are cute, I haven't seen anything in store that are special or unique enough for me to try on.

What about you, readers? Have you checked out Ambar in stores, and if so, have you bought anything from this line?

Target tries to course-correct Ava & Viv...

As I've previously reported, Target's plus-size line Ava & Viv seems to be struggling, with many styles hitting the clearance racks almost as soon as they're put out on the store floor. Now Racked reports that Target is trying to improve the line for Fall based on customer feedback. All three plus-size bloggers who helped introduce the line earlier this year - Nicolette Mason, Gabi Gregg, and Chastity Garner - will be back for the marketing push for Ava & Viv's fall line. 

Mason is promising that this collection will have more input from all three bloggers and the plus-size community than the first one. And Garner acknowledged both positive and negative feedback for the Target line in her blog post as well. "The first AVA & VIV collection for Spring 2015 was a good start, ranging in opinions across the board, from happy to disappointed," she writes. "I have a list of suggested improvements that I've been keeping on my own and from consistent critiques from you guys as well, which I’m looking forward to chatting about with Target’s internal design team later this summer when I visit HQ again. Thank you guys for your full range of honest critiques."

Coming Soon to Target: Local Pride by Todd Snyder

Target has developed a new collab to help you celebrate your roots with Local Pride by Todd Snyder, featuring city-specific merchandise designed to celebrate hometown pride.

An award-winning American menswear designer in New York City (having worked for both Polo Ralph Lauren and J, Crew) and Iowa native, Todd Snyder has experienced both small-town life and big-city living. And if there’s one thing Todd has learned, it’s that each place has its own story to tell.

His collections for Target capture those stories through the lens of design and curation—something Todd’s known for. Earlier this week, Todd debuted the Spring 2016 collection at men’s fashion week for his eponymous label. For his Target line, Todd highlights locally-relevant products in major cities throughout the U.S. that allow guests to walk into their hometown Target and experience the flavor of their local community.

This collection is about the sense of discovery," says Todd. "We want to be your tour guide, showcasing the unique aspects of the local cities. I have visited some of the coolest spots and spoken to a lot of locals in each city that helped me design original, exclusive and fun designs."

Local Pride by Todd Snyder will feature everything from t-shirts and baseball caps to pint glasses and phone cases to locally-relevant products. The collection's first stop is Boston, where the guests are "Wicked smaht" according to Todd's t-shirts. Other curated items include Cape Cod potato chips, Beantown favorite Marshmallow Fluff (both products were born just outside of Boston), and t-shirts featuring local baseball legend Carl ‘Yaz’ Yastrzemski. And stay tuned for Local Pride by Todd Snyder arriving in San Francisco and Chicago at the end of 2015, and more cities come 2016.

Coming Soon to Target: Stevies Shoes

Target certainly seems to want to get into the kiddie shoe market. Right after debuting the new line Surprize by Stride Rite, they've announced another kids' line, Stevies (as in shoe designers Steve Madden's 7 year old daughter, Stevie).

According to A Bullseye View, Stevies is "new line of spunky shoes for girls" that was "inspired by hours spent with her dad at work." Each shoe design is named after a hashtag (like #LOL and #DRESSUP) and are perfect for the playground, birthday parties and everything in between. Stevies will be available boht in stores and online beginning July 19th, with prices ranging from $21.99 to $36.99.

My Review of Eddie Borgo for Target...

A couple of months ago I told you about Eddie Borgo for Target - a collection of bags, charms and jewelry you can mix and match up as you wish. Well the collection has now hit Target stores - look for the special display (shown here) in the accessories department - and is also available online.

As I speculated several weeks ago, the price points for this line ($7.99 - $49.99) seemed too high, which indeed is the case upon viewing the quality of merchandise. Up close and personal, this stuff just looks cheap, especially the bags which are made of screen-printed vinyl. The jewelry and charm designs are nothing special, and I'm afraid the way Target is merchandising this collab (on a flimsy endcap) isn't going to do it any favors. This is one designer collab I'll definitely pass on.

And buyers beware: I noticed clearly printed on the endcap that this collab has the same "14-day return window" policy as the Lilly Pulitzer for Target collection.  I wonder if this is going to be the "new norm" for Target collabs moving forward - ?

Target's Black Friday in July Extended...

It looks like Target's "Black Friday in July" (which I told you about  last Thursday) has been extended thru tomorrow (Monday). For the final two days, Target is having a BOGO on clothes, shoes, accessories, fragrances and hair care. Plus, you can get an extra 10% off by using the promo code "JULY" at checkout.

New at Target: Surprize by Stride Rite

This month Target is launching Surprize by Stride Rite, an exclusive line of tyke-sized shoes designed in partnership with Stride Rite, a leader in quality children’s footwear for the past 90 years.

“We are very excited to partner with Target,” says Kelly Geer, Stride Rite’s vice president of Marketing. “Our design team loved the opportunity to bring together Stride Rite’s promise of quality, cuteness and comfort with the Target commitment to style and accessibility. I know we’ve got an entire collection that both kids and parents will love.”

Surprize by Stride Rite’s exclusive collection for Target offers an array of sneakers, boots, Mary-Janes and more for infants and toddlers, sizes 2 US to 12 US. Over 20 different colorful styles feature memory foam lining to cushion the foot and offer comfort at every angle. And with easy-on, easy-off features like Velcro straps and zippers, this footwear collection is a bonus for parents trying to get their kids out the door, or toddlers learning to get ready for the day all by themselves.

Target's Black Friday in July...

Sorry to be alerting you so late to this, readers, but I've been having some home construction projects going on this week (plus a sick cat, plus a broken down car... when it rains, it pours!) which has prevented me from blogging on a regular basis. But I wanted to let you know that Target is running it's annual "Black Friday in July" promotion NOW on Target.com. It actually started yesterday, but there are still deals to be had through today on a variety of electronics, toys, home appliances and much more.

Coming Soon to Target: Stella Valle Jewelry

After earning degrees from West Point, military trained-turned-jewelry designer sisters Ashley Jung and Paige Dellavalle saluted goodbye to their lock-step career paths and turned to something a bit more sparkly. The result was the duo’s modern yet classic Stella Valle jewelry line.

Combining their military discipline, business degrees and eyes for style, the sisters took a leap of faith (and fortitude) to develop a custom jewelry line that melds military might with a feminine touch—and delivers messages of empowerment to wearers. They quickly gained the backing of moguls Lori Greiner and Mark Cuban after striking a deal on ABC’s Shark Tank. Today they’re about to reach yet another major milestone: launching an exclusive jewelry line for Target. The exclusive Target designs will offer Stella Valle’s signature style in a mix of bangles, rings and more, for a fraction of the price found on the sisters' line seen at boutiques and retailers like Bloomingdales.

With four messages driving the Target collection —“Raise the Bar,” “Move the Chains,” “Shock Everyone” and “Be a Star”—the pieces feature stars, bars, chains and crystals that create a strong, feminine look.

“There is a lot of inspirational jewelry out there that incorporates love and faith and horoscopes, but we didn’t see jewelry that empowers women,” explains Paige on how they developed the esthetic of Stella Valle. “We hope that we can inspire women that despite your background, you can be anything you want to be.”

Head on over to A Bullseye View to see preview pics of the collection. The Stella Valle for Target line will be available starting Aug. 4th - only online, not in stores - and will retail from $17.99 - $39.99.

Sale Alert: La Roche-Posay

Target is having a BOGO deal this week on the pricey (but excellent) skincare line La Roche-Posay. Buy one La Roche-Posay product, and get the second for 50% off. A quick check online shows that almost all of the La Roche-Posay products that Target carries are part of this promotion. This is a great sale as this brand isn't cheap. Shown here is the sunscreen I use (La Roche-Posay Anthelios 45 Body Shaka Ultra Fluid Sunscreen) which normally retails for $36.99.

Wednesday's Rave: Merona Eyelet Shorts

I am normally not a shorts person - even in the dog days of Summer - as I just don't like the way I look in them. I find that most short options these days are either far too short (meaning a 3" inseam or under) or too long (because the bermuda cut does me no favors, hitting my short frame at the knee). That's why I was thrilled to find these eyelet shorts from Merona (at Target) in this fun color called "Mint Everest". The inseam is about 5", and the slim fit actually flatters my figure. Unfortunately, I can't seem to find these online anymore, but if you search the clearance racks perhaps you'll get lucky like I did and find a pair marked down to just $5.98!