The New York Times just did a piece on the ways Tory Burch’s aesthetic has shifted since the pandemic, which came shortly after she handed the CEO reins to her company so that she could just focus on design. I can vividly remember going into her store on Robertson Blvd. here in L.A. about 20 years ago, and seeing all the bright tunics (or maybe it was the wallpaper, as someone else noted THEY remember her more for preppy stuff), and the array of flats with the telltale gold disc logo (the only Tory Burch item I ever bought, actually, and it was a splurge). It felt like resort wear for rich older ladies, or as someone in that piece put it, a very Hamptons veneer. Now she’s trying to be edgier, which in my more cynical moments I attribute less to her flourishing as a designer and more to the fact that the line wasn’t very buzzy and had gotten stuck in an arid rut. I don’t know if I see a point of view here, really, other than “fewer patterns,” but it made sense to me when I read that she’s working with someone at The Row. I do think she’s aiming at that kind of slouchy chic for rich younger millennials, mixed in with cocktail wear.
This quote from the WWD piece about the show made me laugh, unintentionally:
Prices, at least for the runway collection, are higher, and pieces are designed to be more easily interchangeable with other designer labels.
But, she insists, there’s still plenty for her aspirational customer. “What I work on constantly is what we call pieces of the dream — to me that’s one of the most important parts of our business–but I’ve made them more inspiring,” Burch said. “Even a $495 handbag has to be extraordinary. And we’ve found that we do have a customer that does buy the $495 handbag but also a $2,500 handbag. That’s what’s interesting to me — how do we never lose that because that’s why I started the company.”
So she jacked up the prices, but wants the customers who now merely aspire to afford those pieces to rest comfortably knowing that even her $495 handbags — her version of cheap — won’t be terrible. That’s… great? Is she implying that most of the $495 handbags out there are uninspiring and lame crap? I hope not because that’s beyond even my handbag ceiling, Tory.
