Steal this Look : A Look Inside Forever 21

[seanutbutter]

Originally Posted by Star Foreman

When they bring items made with cheap fabric, badly dyed items, or just plain ugly items it creates images that are less than par.

A good photographer can make the ugliest of things beautiful. It shouldn't matter what the material is.

[L0VE]

Agreed Seanutbutter

And I love how F21 gets flack when express has the same type of tops:




expressfashion.com, forever21.com

and this shirt from express (39.50) looks cheap and the second is 19.50 (also from Express)



I don't know but this one looks better and is only 5 bucks more from Forever21.


I don't know about you but my eye gears more towards forever21 in the beauty and tasteful chic factor.

I mean if this is what the average store will give me below designer, then I'll stick with forever21.

expressfashion.com
yuck

and last but not least, 49.50 or 19.80
I'd still pick forever21.

1st express, 2nd f21

[L0VE]

And the only difference is that Forever21 is inspired by the PRESENT seasons not last season.

style.com, express.com Look quite similar


(my first thought was Versace spring 07



I also don't see the difference between topshop and f21


topshop.com forever21.com

[unipine]

Express is not nearly as trendy and desperate as Forever 21. much more expensive, yes, but i have a few coats, cardigans, and dresses from there that have lasted me years in terms of both quality and relevance.

[L0VE]

And these look exactly like the Nina Ricci dresses in the new ads in American Vogue:

Topshop.com


It's just the way fashion works. 5 different designers just don't all happen to just come up with the idea of floral dresses or metalic shoes. Someone is obviously following someone.

nymag.com

http://www.fashionverbatim.net

[L0VE]

Originally Posted by unipine

Express is not nearly as trendy and desperate as Forever 21. much more expensive, yes, but i have a few coats, cardigans, and dresses from there that have lasted me years in terms of both quality and relevance.

I own clothing from them too and so does my sister. The stuff washes the same and most of it resembles my forever21 stuff and cost $20 more. Some forever21 stuff does not wash up good but most of it lasts just like anything else. Express starts to wear and the zippers get stuck after about 5 washes. And some of it is actually cheaper than forever21.

[sariii]

wow I had no clue

[PinkPrincess113]

L0VE - I couldn't have said it any better! I have a couple of Express things and their things always shrink and they tear easily. My F21 things have lasted for years and they are nice basics that I wear a lot. For under $20, I think it's a great buy. Also, a lot of people I know buy clothes from F21 because they know they will only wear it once or twice- for a night out or a formal event, etc. I think they should work out their legal issues and stick to their own ideas for prints and patterns but it's kind of sad that they should be targeted when tons of other companies do even worst things such as horizontal price fixing or market divisions.

[giapops]

Originally Posted by kahlilg

clarification please. for some people it's all that they can afford. besides, it's not what you wear. it's how you wear it.

I agree. I've seen many wealthy women in the fashion industry look cheap as hell in their designer rags.

[Ella Petrovsky]

Forever 21 is cheap and has poor quality, I think we`ve all established that. Its also unoriginal, but then again what isn`t? Look at L.A.M.B, Topshop, and H&M. Tell me what Forever21 is doing that they aren`t?

I must say even though Forever 21 is pretty cheap, it still has many beautiful pieces (yes, probably because they stole the outfits from other designers). Forever 21 is also the answer to many people who cannot afford the expensive Dior outfits or Chanel dresses. Are you expecting those with a limited budget, not to be stylish or try to look like it at least? I think this bashing of Forever 21 is overrating, as if places in downtown LA aren`t doing the same thing? How come we adore L.A.M.B, Topshop and H&M, when they`re all doing the same thing? And please do not give me the crap about how those stores have better quality, when they still stole the patterns and prints from other designers. Forever 21 is what it is, poor quality and stolen designs or not.

[ysljunkie]

I think LOVE just about summed this whole thing up.

[jollyvixen]

Originally Posted by seanutbutter

Yes, but I assure you, it's not directed towards Forever 21. It's more along the lines of not stealing people.

That is why we have man's law.

[L0VE]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/04/us...=1&oref=slogin

Buyers from the nation’s leading department stores will sift through the work of hundreds of designers as another Fashion Week begins today in New York, seeking the looks that shoppers will want to wear next spring. Seema Anand will be looking for the ones they want right now.
Skip to next paragraph Multimedia

Slide Show Original vs. Knockoff




Joe Fornabiaio for The New York Times
Seema Anand's firm makes clothes inspired by other designers.



Ms. Anand, who will be following the catwalk shows through photographs posted instantly on the Web, is a designer few would recognize, even though she has dressed more people than most of the famous designers exhibiting a few blocks from her garment district studio, under the tents in Bryant Park.
“If I see something on Style.com, all I have to do is e-mail the picture to my factory and say, ‘I want something similar, or a silhouette made just like this,’ ” Ms. Anand said. The factory, in Jaipur, India, can deliver stores a knockoff months before the designer version.
Ms. Anand compared a gold sequined tunic she created with a nearly identical one by the designer Tory Burch. Bloomingdale’s had asked her to make several hundred of the dresses for its private label Aqua, she said.
The Tory Burch dress sells for $750; Ms. Anand’s is $260.
Ms. Anand’s company, Simonia Fashions, is one of hundreds that make less expensive clothes inspired by other designers’ runway looks, for trendy stores like Forever 21 and retail behemoths like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.
A debate is raging in the American fashion industry over such designs. Copying, which has always existed in fashion, has become so pervasive in the Internet era it is now the No. 1 priority of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, which is lobbying Congress to extend copyright protection to clothing. Nine senators introduced a bill last month to support the designers. An expert working with the designers’ trade group estimates that knockoffs represent a minimum of 5 percent of the $181 billion American apparel market.
Outlawing them is certainly an uphill battle, since many shoppers see nothing wrong with knockoffs, especially as prices for designer goods skyrocket. Critics of the designers’ group even argue that copies are good for fashion because they encourage designers to continuously invent new wares to stay ahead.
Designers say that is pre-Internet thinking.
“For me, this is not simply about copying,” said Anna Sui, one of more than 20 designers who have filed lawsuits against Forever 21, one of the country’s fastest-growing clothing chains, for selling what they claim are copies of their apparel. “The issue is also timing. These copies are hitting the market before the original versions do.”
The designers seek to outlaw clothing that looks very similar to their originals but is sold under someone else’s label. They want to extend laws that already ban counterfeit handbags and sunglasses with designer logos, which reportedly account for as much as $12 billion of sales. A reliable estimate of knockoffs cannot be determined because designers and retailers disagree on which clothes are copies and which are merely “inspired” by a trend, a normal part of the fashion food chain.
Ms. Anand agreed to offer a rare look at a side of fashion that exists parallel to Seventh Avenue’s celebrity designers, though all but unknown to the public. Interviews with executives at a number of companies that specialize in designing for the private labels of department stores and other chains reveal a highly competitive network of factories, which use the latest technology to reproduce designer looks with the impunity and speed of Robin Hood. Their copies do not violate existing law.
“This is the requirement of the market,” Ms. Anand said. “If a buyer tells us, ‘This is what I need,’ we’ll make it for them. This is our business.”
Her mother, Shashi Anand, founded their company, Simonia Fashions, in 1980, five years after she moved to New York from New Delhi. Shashi Anand has won awards for her success as an Asian businesswoman, including one presented in 1998 by Bill and Hillary Clinton, whose pictures are framed on her office wall.
The company, with 10 employees in the showroom, has sales of $20 million, about 80 percent of which is for clothes sold under the private labels of stores like Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s, and for specialty chains like Forever 21, Rampage and Urban Outfitters. They also design their own line, Blue Plate.
Most of their designs are original, or partly inspired by market trends, the women said; but some look like direct copies, and some of those are made at the specific request of retailers.

(Theres more at the above link)

[L0VE]

Like I said, BEBE sells inspired clothing too.
nytimes.com

[L0VE]

'Ms. Anand’s company, Simonia Fashions, is one of hundreds that make less expensive clothes inspired by other designers’ runway looks, for trendy stores like Forever 21 and retail behemoths like Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s.'

So basically all who said neiman marcus is better, well read that. It's the same stuff. F21 sells different makes of clothing. Some cheap some not.