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Sarah Parrout's blue dress from Episode 1
Last week, Fashion Star debuted on NBC to decent ratings and not-so-great reviews from the fashion industry. Judging from Twitter responses, most fashion insiders thought the rules were confusing and the clothes not so hot. (Our moms told us they loved it, though, for what that's worth.) The one thing everyone seemed to like was this cute cutout shift dress from designer Sarah Parrout, which was picked up by H&M and sold out online in both the teal blue and the black within 45 minutes of the show's finale.
Turns out that H&M had trouble fulfilling some of those eager orders, however. Jezebel editor Dodai Stewart purchased the dress, but received a customer service email two days later saying the order had been cancelled: "We regret to inform you that due to a technical error with the available inventory in the online store, we are not able to fulfill your order and as a result your order has been cancelled in accordance with the Terms & Conditions of the H&M Fashion Star store." So she, along with an unknown number of other people, had to move on with their lives without the $19.99 minidress.
Macy's and Saks also produced and sold garments from the first episode, but H&M seems to be the only retailer who had fulfillment issues. Which probably makes sense, if you consider that a) the H&M customer is the kind who stands in line overnight to get first dibs on the Marni collaboration merchandise, and b) that H&M is the only one of the three retailers on the show that doesn't have an active e-commerce site in the US. (The Fashion Star shop is a one-off boutique that exists through the H&M marketing site, but will disappear again after the show is over.)
Anyway, the bad news here is that if things go badly with their Fashion Star online store, we're probably that much further from getting regular e-commerce up and running here in the States. Stay tuned tonight for our coverage after the show.
· Episode 1: Is Fashion Star the Next Fashion Star? [Racked]
· H&M Is Launching E-Commerce for NBC's New "Fashion Star" Reality Series [Racked]
· You Can Order Clothes Seen on Fashion Star, But You May Never Get Them [Jezebel]