WTF: Where’s Tolstoy when you need him? Anna Karenina & Banana Republic

Pictured: British Star Kiera Knightly as the tragic Russian heroine Anna Karenina.

Here’s some surprising news about a literary classic.  The Gap reports that mass market retailer Banana Republic has plans to release a collection styled around literary classic Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy.  This one goes into my WTF file as I’ve never thought of Tsarist styles from Imperial Russian in the same breath as mass market retailer Banana Republic. Seriously, who has? Here’s what’s going on. A new film of Anna Karenina is set to be released in November 2012 starring Kiera Knightly as Anna and Jude Law as her lover Vronsky.  So what better plan to pre-market the movie than some fashion tie-ins to be released say a month or so before the movie?  Enter Banana Republic, with the announcement of a curated collection for the brand styled by the new film’s costume designer, Jacqueline Durran.   As a wealthy women in Imperial Russia, Anna Karenina lead an opulent lifestyle and wore beautiful, corseted fashions and gorgeous jewelry.  Not to mention veiled hats and furs, including sable.  I know because I actually read the novel.  For Tolstoy, fashion in Anna Karenina was a metaphor for the self-indulgent and idol St. Petersburg society that had lost it’s moral compass. Sounds like the perfect fit for a retailer that uses a lot of synthetic fabrics and recreates vintage fashions from the 50’s and 60’s on a regular basis.  So here’s the initial plan for the Anna collection. “Reinterpreted” costume jewelry like faux pearls, coats, handbags and blouses. Prices will range from $39.50 for a blouse to $325 for a coat.  It’s reported that the jewelry and accessories will be priced from $29.50 for jewelry to $250 for a handbag.  What no Fabergé inspired pins or cigarette cases, so popular among the Russian nobility?  Sounds like the stunning low-cut black velvet dress trimmed with guipure Venetian lace and the expensive batiste dress that Anna wore in the book won’t be featured in this collection.

Pictured: Greta Garbo as Anna, one of the few actresses to play the tragic Anna who was not British.

I’ll be following the conversations about this collection on Twitter with the hashtag #BRAnnaK to see what consumers and the Tweeps are thinking.  One thing is for sure, you would never have seen a wealthy women like Anna Karenina shopping at Banana Republic.  Anna had a dressmaker in St. Petersburg and bought gowns from Paris. After Anna leaves her wealthy husband, she has her expensive dresses altered by a dressmaker to make them look new.  For her, shopping at a store that is part of the Gap chain would’ve been a bigger exile from fashionable St. Petersburg society than seeking a divorce!