The Joanne Hynes collection for Dunnes Stores which went on sale at the weekend has been almost a sellout with queues forming outside the St Stephen’s Green and Grafton Street outlets at 10am on Sunday preceded by online sales on Saturday.
Signature Joanne Hynes items such as jewelled collars, appliquéd leather skirts and shirts were some of the first to go and there was no resistance to the €900 tag on the reversible pink shearling coats of which only 10 were made and at the time of writing only one was left.
Margaret Heffernan of Dunnes Stores, who is the driving force behind the stylish revamp of the flagship stores and their utilitarian image and deeply involved in the collaboration with Hynes was reported to be ecstatic about the response which she described as phenomenal.
"We are not revisiting anything that sells out and that is important", Joanne Hynes told The Irish Times. The customer profile included "cool" older women, according to Hynes "who are buying into the fun things", she said. A navy velvet bomber jacket was one of the first items to fly out.
The second part of the collection goes on sale on October 18th, which includes another shearling coat in patchwork colours, along with knitwear, fit and flare dresses and Lurex printed art deco design sweaters. According Dunnes, sales have equally divided between those buying in store outlets and online.
The reported sales demonstrated the appetite for limited edition fashion collections from high-profile designers highlighted by the well-known H&M collaborations with top international names.
In another move, the “Ramp to Retail” ready-to-buy initiative by Topshop saw the British retailer sell parts of its Unique collection immediately after its spring/summer 2017 catwalk collection on Sunday in London. There, many were equally surprised – and undeterred – by the £900 price tags on some items such as a zebra print blouson jacket, for example, displayed on rails afterwards for sale.
Shopping habits, as Hynes observed, are changing.
