3.1 Phillip Lim for Target

I’m sure since my last post the question on everyone’s mind is “Did you pick anything up from the 3.1 Phillip Lim for Target collection?”. The answer is yes, yes I did indeed. And if I had to sum up the entire experience in one word, a few that come to mind are: choatic, hectic and frantic. Don’t get me wrong, the Blogger Breakfast was fantastic. It was the grand-opening of Target that got a little crazy.

Myself and a large group of other fellow Ottawa bloggers were invited to a breakfast at 7 AM the morning of the grand opening and were treated to a lovely assortment of fruits, croissants and Tim Horton’s beverages. As discussion of the grand opening ensued, the hot topic quickly became evident: did anyone want anything from the 3.1 Phillip Lim collaboration collection and what did they want? Having already had a pre-tour of Target, we had knowledge of where exactly the collection was kept. We then quickly hatched a plan and came to the conclusion that we would work together to ensure that everyone would get what they had their eye on.

As we wrapped up the breakfast and descending upon the front entrance of Target, a little bit of shoppaholic anxiety set in. Rounding the corner of the parking lot, to our dismay a line had already begun to form outside of the store. Surprisingly though the line was a lot shorter than I had anticipated. With about 35 minutes to go before opening, there were roughly only about 15 people ahead of us. We did a couple of photo-ops and then gathered in line to wait. It definitely was a little chilly that morning, but being Canadian and having experienced Boxing Day in -40 Celsius, this was next to nothing.

The doors opened promptly at 8:00 AM and everyone in front of us literally dashed inside. Running towards the bags, you could see eager hands grabbing for anything they could get ahold of. My mission was to exit the store with two mini pashli’s, and that’s exactly what I did. Luckily for myself, other people were pulling at the larger totes so the top racks that the smaller bags hung from were still fully stocked. I remember at one point when I was trying to get a yellow satchel a woman was trying to pull the same one off from the other side of the display. I let go at that point because we both had our hands on the same bag and I already had one in my other hand. I took what I needed, grabbed a couple extra for good measure and stepped back to view the scene playing out in front of me. Since I had a couple extra, I gave away the ones that I didn’t want to keep to the other bloggers that weren’t able to get ahold of a bag for themselves.

Within less than 3 minutes, the racks of bags were cleared and some bloggers later recounted that they saw bags literally flying off of the racks. Some of the customers walked off with handfuls of bags leaving others frustrated in their wake.  Sadly there were only three of each bag, so supply was extremely limited.

After taking my time to shop the rest of the store, I stopped back at the collection on my way back to the cashiers. Myself and some other bloggers chatted with one of the employees who informed us that a few minutes before opening the doors they had toyed with the idea of regulating the flow of customers to the collection and only allowing one item to each person. That idea was quickly forgotten in the excitement of the doors opening, resulting in sad looking empty racks within minutes.

I do have some good news to those were unable to make it to the grand opening. Apparently the shipment that Billings Bridge received was extremely small just to test out the market in that area. So by next week, a new shipment of the collection should be arriving and those who still wish to pick up a bag are recommended to call in ahead of time to make sure that stock is available.

However I do want to give the opportunity to those who are unable to pick up something in the collection a chance to own a piece of it. Therefore I’m thinking of picking up one of the bags hopefully next week, should anymore come into stock. If you’d like to see a giveaway, please comment and let me know which bag you’re interested the most!