nytimes
First Stop: Target. Next Stop: eBay.
     By KATE MURPHY
              IT’S been a month since Target released its Missoni for Target line and  scrums of shoppers cleared the discount retailer’s shelves and crashed  its Web site. But as with some earlier limited-edition “masstige”  collections, the frenzy has continued in the secondary market, with  sold-out items going for breathtakingly inflated prices on eBay and  Craigslist and in consignment shops.        
  “It’s been pure craziness trying to keep up with the orders,” said Susan  Mayorga, 47, an eBay seller in Shadow Hills, Calif., better known as  Deals818. She was lucky to score a cartful of Missoni for Target dresses  and jumpers at an undertrafficked store in her area and has been  reselling them for $100 to $200 more than retail price. “Then I look at  what other sellers are getting and I kick myself that I’m not asking for  more,” she said.        
  One optimistic eBay seller is asking $31,000 for a pair of Missoni for  Target rain boots that originally cost $34.99, saying she needs the  money for her daughter’s college tuition. But completed transactions  over the last month reveal markups more realistically in the 25 percent  to 400 percent range. The highest paid price on eBay for the coveted  Missoni for Target multicolored bicycle, retail value $399.99, was  $1,279.95.        
  “It’s the limited availability that’s the secret” to the steep resale  prices, said Linda Lightman of Horsham, Pa., owner of Linda’s Stuff, an  eBay store specializing in women’s designer clothing. “It keeps up the  demand, whereas discount diffusion lines that are ongoing like Vera Wang  at Kohl’s aren’t great sellers for us.”        
  Top designers have been creating masstige lines, also known as diffusion  and bridge brands, for decades. But since Karl Lagerfeld created his  one-off line for H & M in 2004, exclusive and short-lived  collaborations between top designers and discount stores have become  fashion events breathlessly anticipated and promoted on social media.  The countdown has already begun for the Jason Wu for Target collection,  which will be in stores in February.        
  And while certain collectors may sniff, many of these limited-edition  lines, because of their calculated sense of urgency, have not only  prompted stampedes despite the struggling economy but have also held or  exceeded their original value even years after their introduction.         
  In August, Ms. Lightman sold a limited edition Mulberry for Target  handbag for $219 (it cost $49 during the six weeks it was available in  stores last year). “The opening bid on eBay was $29, so the sale price  really tells you what the market will bear,” she said. “Many of my  customers are in Europe or Asia where they don’t have Target stores.”         
  By contrast, costlier diffusion lines that are always available in  department stores from Hackensack, N.J., to Hanoi — like DKNY (Donna  Karan), CK (Calvin Klein) and Marc by Marc Jacobs — usually resell for  30 to 75 percent less than the original price depending on the age and  condition of the garment, Ms. Lightman said.        
  And some initially splashy collaborations, like Isaac Mizrahi and  Target, lasted so long that the market seems to be saturated; indeed,  some eBay listings for Mizrahi items take care to specify “not Target.”  (Good luck finding any of the designs he oversaw during his brief tenure  at Liz Claiborne.)        
  That’s not to say all limited-edition lines fetch high prices at resale.  The collections that Matthew Williamson created for H & M in 2009,  Erin Fetherston designed for Target in 2007 and Tara Jarmon designed for  Target in 2006 don’t create much excitement at resale, with items  usually selling at prices comparable with nondesigner used clothing.         
  But lines by more widely known and recognizable designers (like Liberty  of London for Target with its easily identifiable floral prints, and  Missoni for Target with its distinctive zigzag patterns) tend to sell  for significantly more than they cost when available in stores.        
  “All you have to do is look at the design and tell that it’s Missoni,  even if it was from Target,” said Teri Clark, 49, a school liaison for  children of military officers in Oahu, Hawaii, who paid $285 for a  Missoni for Target dress on eBay that originally cost $59.99. “I didn’t  feel cheated. I felt like I had won something.”        
  Likewise, draped and dramatic clothes by Karl Lagerfeld for H & M  and come-hither high heels by Jimmy Choo for H & M are hot  commodities at resale. For example, a 2004 Karl Lagerfeld for H & M  black sequin jacket that originally cost $119 now goes for around $230,  and 2009 blue metallic cage heels by Jimmy Choo for H&M that cost  $129 in the store now sell for around $270.        
  Abigail Rutherford, director of vintage couture for Leslie Hindman  Auctioneers in Chicago, is mystified. “The whole point of diffusion  brands is that they are less expensive,” she said. “If you’re going to  pay that much, why not just get the real thing?”        
  Collectors of vintage clothing certainly tend to prefer designers’  higher-end work. While they may pay top dollar for 1970s Halston, Ms.  Rutherford said, they generally turn up their noses at Halston III, the  diffusion line created by the designer for J. C. Penney in the 1980s.  “It just reeks, I won’t touch it,” she said. “There’s no secondary  market for Halston III even though his other stuff has been so hot the  past few years.”        
  The Halston III example may be instructive. According to the fashion  historian and author Caroline Rennolds Milbank, that diffusion line is  now considered “disastrous” even though when the collection was  introduced, “it was a big success with great reviews and great sales.”  She wondered if the same might eventually be true of the more-recent  discount diffusion lines.        
  But it’s debatable whether the pieces will last long enough for anyone  to find out, since they tend to be made with lesser fabrics (that is,  inexpensive synthetics and thin cotton) and in greater haste, to enable  lower price points.        
  Erin Barnes, 32, a stay-at-home mother in Olathe, Kan., doesn’t think  masstige is worth the retail price much less the markup at resale. She  bought several items from the Missoni for Target line from her local  store but returned everything except a skirt and sweater set that she  wore before she realized she didn’t want it.        
  “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t have bought any of it,” she  said, although she plans to auction off what she kept on eBay. “I wasn’t  impressed with the quality. Like the wood on the heels of the pumps was  fake and reminded me of the wood-patterned contact paper you can get on  another aisle at Target.”        
  But perception of value often depends on expectations. Roseanne  Morrison, fashion director of the Doneger Group, a retail and  merchandising consulting firm in New York City, said: “I think we are  talking about the designer name and the stimulus of scarcity here. If  the collection has enough elements of the designer’s signature look and  there’s limited availability, it’s probably going to do well at least in  the near term.”        
  Stephanie Raven, 37, of Montgomery, Ala., who operates an eBay store  called Myriad Trading Co., has been happily making a 300 percent profit  reselling the cache of Missoni for Target ballet flats, note cards,  expandable files and media bins she was able to buy at a store in nearby  Prattville, Ala. “I’m lucky to live in an area that doesn’t pay that  much attention to fashion,” she said.        
  Explaining why evidently more fashion-conscious people in California,  New York, Thailand, Australia and Germany have been willing to pay her  such a premium, she said: “They’ve got to have it because everyone’s on  Facebook and Twitter saying they’ve got to have it. Sounds like high  school, doesn’t it?”