Target has been lauded for its designer collabs for more than a quarter century, beginning with Michael Graves in 1999 and including such luminaries as Phillipe Starck, Isaac Mizrahi, and Marimekko.
But the retailer’s latest partnership, which launched on April 12 with Kate Spade New York, is being met with resistance by some on social media. Much of the criticism is being directed at Target for caving on its diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies, with users urging one another to be steadfast in boycotting Target by resisting the colorful handbags, clothing, home accessories and more in the collection of 300-plus pieces. (Kate Spade’s parent company, Tapestry, has not abandoned its DEI program.)
“Friendly reminder that we are still 100% boycotting Target,” Megan Farina said in an April 8 TikTok that had more than 2.2 million views when this story was published. “You get rid of DEI, you think we’re gonna come back for Kate Spade?...No, but remember, stand strong. You don’t need the bag.”
“This collab between Kate Spade and Target is all over my feed,” said Leslie Gaar in her April 4 TikTok, before alluding to the fact that Target and other companies acquiesced to the Trump administration’s demand for private companies to dismantle DEI. “And I just keep thinking, there is no better summer accessory than solidarity against authoritarianism. Just goes with everything.”
Neither Target nor Kate Spade New York responded to repeated requests for comment from Retail Brew.
Drop ’till you shop: TikTok user @lizzy.juned, who describes herself as a sales associate at a Kate Spade Outlet who sometimes promotes her store’s wares on the platform, began a five-video preview of the collection with a caveat.
“Dear Target, please make good on the DEI situation and literally reverse everything in the next week so that I can buy all 300 pieces of this collab,” she said. “And just to be clear, as someone who works for Kate Spade, their DEI policy could not be more the opposite of Target. They are so good to their employees and believe firmly in DEI and especially in supporting women’s mental health awareness.” (Kate Spade herself died by suicide at age 55 in 2018; she’d sold her remaining share of the company in 2006.)
After wavering between enthusiasm for the products and criticizing Target for its DEI reversals, @lizzy.juned ultimately urged viewers to skip the collab altogether in a video she posted on the day Kate Spade New York x Target dropped, April 12.
“For $20, $30 more…go to the Kate Spade Outlet,” she said. “You’re gonna get a much better quality product, much cuter designs.”
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When a user shared a Kate Spade bag from the collab that she liked on the r/handbags subreddit on Reddit on April 2, others chimed in.
“Agree it’s cute,” responded @jaderust. “But I’m still not going to shop at Target. They’re dead to me.”
“I love Kate Spade, and all of my bags are Kate Spade,” added @Beginning-Match2166. “Target is really trying to get us to go back. But they made their bed. Sorry Target.”
Becoming a Target target: Sara McCord, founder and CEO of McCord Communications, a self-described “values-led” marketing agency with a focus on social media campaigns, said Target is seeing the fallout for capitulating on DEI after championing diversity on social media for years.
“There are social media users who thought Target was in their foxhole…and who really felt like Target gave a shit, candidly,’” McCord told Retail Brew. Now those consumers who’d believed Target’s values aligned with their own, she continued, are left to ask Target, “‘Was I duped? Was this all performative? Do you not actually care?’”
McCord also noted that by partnering with Target at this moment, Kate Spade could be collateral damage on social media.
“It’s not only that Kate Spade can’t help Target break free from the negative press on TikTok, but it’s like Target is taking down Kate Spade with it,” she said. “And Kate Spade’s name wouldn’t even be in the conversation if they weren’t doing the collab.”
“I wouldn’t break a boycott for a bottle of water after a 10-mile run, and I see somebody saying, Well, I’m going to break the Target boycott because there’s a Kate Spade collab,” Erica Mags (@leta_bitchknow) proclaimed in a recent TikTok video. “Kate Spade peaked in the early 2000s,” she added, and then spent most of the video mocking the fact that the collab collection includes a 15-pack of Kate Spade designer trash bags.
The takeaway for brands may be that if you get on a tandem bike with Target, brace yourself for the potholes.
“If you co-brand with Target in this moment, people who might not have made a video about you otherwise are going to make a video that there’s no reason to shop your collaboration with Target,” McCord said. “If you’re not looking for poor publicity, that’s one thing to consider from a sheer profitability standpoint.”