Tasteless:The Rihanna for River Island Two collection Hits the Racks

Rihanna River Island Fashions

After a less than stellar showing at  London Fashion Week last fall, the Rihanna for River Island collection arrived in selected stores and online this Memorial Day Weekend.   This latest fashion atrocity in a long line of celebrity labeled lines is over priced and fugly.   Rihanna for River Island is an over priced hodge podge of cropped tops, jumpsuits and short skirts.  This collection as bad as anything from other celebrity fashion lines like Tori Spelling’s jewelry or Maria Carey’s HSN line.  This line is neither chic nor cheap.   The real shame is that there are great young designers who are struggling to bring tasteful, well designed pieces to the market, who can’t find a market for their collections.
John Kyle Farmer, an assistant professor at Parson recently spoke to the Daily Mail about the lackluster Rihanna collection saying, “‘I think people do know good things when they see it, but sometimes there’s so much going out that sometimes people don’t go, “Okay, is that good? Is that not good?”  Good point there.  The noise of celebrities marketing fashions and calling themselves “designers”  can confuses consumers.  Rihanna’s celebrity, lateness at concerts and relationship with Chris Brown is what makes people pay attention to her fashion line, not the attractiveness or quality of the items.   With prices from $50.00 for over sized shirts and over $100.00 for dresses, I hope consumers will pass on this collection and send a message to fashion retailers that they deserve better quality goods for these prices.  Why pay the company that hired Rhihanna’s so they can pay her celebrity license fee for stuff you can find much cheaper elsewhere?
‘