From the moment we stepped on to the juniors’ floor at Macy’s, it was clear that Madonna’s Material Girl line, unveiled Tuesday with an in-store performance by Taylor Momsen and plenty of Madge impersonators, will fare significantly better than February’s Olsenboye/JCPenney collab. The section was already packed with teens, tweens, and foreign tourists, and the racks were ravaged; size smalls were quickly making their way onto the endangered species list.
Most of the Material Girl pieces hearken back to the eighties (think: lace, puffy shoulders, crop tops, and spandex). When trying on the clothes, we couldn’t help but think that this would have been our dream wardrobe as children. In fact, we’re pretty sure our kindergarten selves owned flowered leggings just like the ones the line offers today.
That isn’t to say there were no wearable pieces, though. We actually found a dress we considered buying, and a cardigan that reminded us of a Vince number we saw at Loehmann’s last year. The quality isn’t terrible, either — better than Olsenboye and on par with H&M — and certainly fair if you consider the prices. Cardigans ran around $28, dresses between $15 and $28, printed T-shirts $20, ruffled miniskirts $24, and, if they’re your thing, sparkly bike shorts for $15 and faux-fur vests for $34. Sizing, however, is inconsistent: Those sparkly bike shorts were sausage-casing-tight in a size small, whereas a medium ruffled miniskirt was practically falling off our hips.
Though we didn’t purchase anything on this visit, we’d consider going back for the Material Girl cardigan … and maybe around Halloween, should we decide to go as Madonna.
