Yesterday I got to finally see the Ava & Viv line at my neighborhood Target stores. Needless to say I was not impressed. For a company that claims they wish to improve their relationship with plus size customers they have gone about it the wrong way, using the very poor practices that got them negative criticism in the first place.

To start I was surprised that to find no promotions for the launch of the line save for blog posts by Chastity Garner of  Garnersyle, Nicolette Mason and Gabi Gregg of GabiFresh. To be honest I half expected Target to make the additional effort to air a look book style commercial for the line on television, if not the days leading to the launch at least the day before. Of course, there was nothing. To date there is only one video on the line and its blogger models which is ridiculous if you compare it to the three videos on the 2013 collection by Philip Lim. There was no hype surround the launch before, after or even during.* While I didn’t get a chance to get to Target on Sunday, February 22 to experience this for myself, I haven’t heard or seen anything that contradicts this point. It seems like Target’s new line is not something they are  proud of. Its much like that boyfriend who is dating a plus size girl and is making sure to keep it a secret because he is embarrassed. Sure Target claims it has no qualms with its plus size customers but they won’t associate themselves with us much, they just want to make sure we continue to patronize there stores.

That said let’s take a look at what Target is (currently) offering with this Ava & Viv line. Continue reading →