Chicago vs House of Dereon
Unless you've got something nice to say to Beyoncé and her mother about B's new clothing line, don't say it at all. Such is the lesson the media learned last week during a junket in Chicago.
When the singer debuted her House of Dereon line in Second City, she was all smiles — until one reporter asked her and her mother about a potential problem with the line. What should have been a big day for B immediately went sour, and now the incident is living on as viral video.
Beyoncé and Tina Knowles were in Chicago on Thursday and Friday to launch House of Dereon's first boutique, housed at Macy's on State Street. They were also gearing up for the line's first runway show, at Macy's Glamorama fashion extravaganza, which benefited the Art Institute of Chicago. The Glamorama event also featured nine other designer collections — including Marc Jacobs, Ralph Lauren, D&G, Just Cavalli and Badgley Mischka — and perhaps those more established designers would have been better equipped to handle hard questions. But Beyoncé and Tina didn't seem to have a strategy in place to either deflect or field difficult questions, as Beyoncé kept smiling blankly while her mother played guard dog.
At the Thursday press junket, WBBM-TV consumer reporter Dorothy Tucker started off with a few softball questions, such as "Why did you choose Chicago?" and "Who is the line for?" Tina Knowles responded that Chicago had always been a "very supportive" city, while Beyoncé responded that her clothing line is for "everyone: the working woman, the teenager, the trendy woman." "Obviously I can wear it, my mother can wear it," she said. "It just celebrates three generations of style."
Which led Tucker to her next question, somewhat disproving Tina's thesis that Chicago was supportive and Beyoncé's belief that any female could wear her clothes. "They're beautiful [clothes]," she started, "but the next question — I don't quite understand it, and maybe you guys can explain it for me — your clothes are sold in about a dozen stores in the Chicago area. We did get a phone call from a couple of those stores who said they had to send the production back, that there was a poor fit, the tops weren't ..."
As soon as Tucker started raising the concerns she'd heard from local retailers, Tina Knowles cut her off — and asked that the videotape that had been rolling be cut off as well. "Why would you — wait, wait, wait — we're going to cut that off. Why would you do that? You're here to interview us about the clothes, in a positive light."
Tucker persisted. She said she'd spoken with boutique owners such as Allyson Masters of Impressions in Wheaton, Illinois, who had told her that the tops she received were sized wrong. Since the retailers hadn't been able to get a response from the company, Tucker tried to get one for them. "It doesn't make any sense," Tucker continued, "because I'm looking at the clothing ..."
But Tina Knowles had had enough. "Yeah, but I don't want to talk about that on the air," she said, as the tape cuts off.
A shortened version of the interview has cropped up on YouTube and has been making the rounds online. As for Masters, she told CBS that the problem would be easy enough to solve on her end: "That's all I'd like — larger sizes."
See the videos at:
http://cbs2chicago.com/video/[email protected]
http://cbs2chicago.com/video/[email protected]
Source: mtv.com (MTV News) & cbs2chicago.com
I guess if other people like it, that's good for them, but I know I won't be buying any of it. 
