Dolls Kill x dELiA*s: Throw-Back or Throw-Away?
Brace yourselves for the return of 90’s and 00’s nostalgia, kids!
I have fond memories of trying on a pair of far too tight skinny jeans for the $20 off deal at my local New Jersey suburban mall’s dELiA*s, and the release of Dolls Kill’s new dELiA*s collection brings me back to days filled with skater style floral dresses and cami’s layered under literally everything.
The collection, which dropped last month, is teeming with “daisy embroidered denim, platform boots, butterfly hair clips, baby doll dresses, flare jeans, denim overalls, lip gloss, crop tops, combat boots, 90’s shoes, and hand curated 90’s vintage finds.” As many fashion brands have done with the ever recurring [insert decade here]’s revival trends, focusing on eras past and bringing back iconic looks is the name of the nostalgia marketing game.
For a laugh and to learn how to resist the 90’s nostalgia spiral and perhaps mourn your forgotten digital pets, the Reductress has got you covered!
As a whole, the collection features a lot of rainbow and a lot of dELiA*s logos and iconic petaled flower design plastered all over and onto just about everything. In scrolling through the pieces, I am admittedly very conflicted in my opinion. I find myself honing in on the dELiA*s logo (it’s very easy to do, it’s on legit everything) and feeling that the collection is trying to hard to sell a logo over reviving the 90’s favorite brand.
Despite my love for and many pairs of chunky black shoes, my (very) poorly defined fashion style of “prep school drop out turned punky and keeps wearing the same Victorian-era-esque thrift store blouse” doesn’t really mesh with the colorful, logo chest patch vibe and this probably translates to my initial lack of interest. Yet, my sentiment is immediately contradicted by the pieces that are actual recreations from original dELiA*s catalogs (and remarkably sans logo!), like these ones.
While the clothing isn’t exactly in my wheelhouse, I do admit to laughing (actually out loud, sorry fellow Harper Library patrons) at the revival of the AOL Messenger “lol i’M soOOooO rAndOm XD!! RAWR!” vibe to the whole marketing campaign this collection has going on; it’s sOoOOoo 90’s!! It’s admittedly a lot, but I am a huge fan of how completely committed to the whole “revival of the 90’s” aesthetic Dolls Kill is in all aspects of marketing for this collection–we’re talking @delias Instagram account and all!
Aside from the colorful clothes and nostalgia of Instagram campaigns, the revival of dELiA*s by Dolls Kill speaks to the “retail apocalypse” of bankruptcies and retail store shutterings, leaving the field open to licensing deals such as this dELiA*s one. To read more about this pseudo-business side of the collaboration, check out this article from Vox.
All images via Dolls Kill’s website and Instagram. Quotes from Elle Magazine.
