Chris Benz on Why Neon Pink Works for Holiday

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Last week, eBay unveiled their much-anticipated holiday collection of 40 items—all of which cost under $100—created in partnership with designers Chris Benz, Ruffian, Jonathan Adler, Fallon, Tibi, Steven Alan, and Billy Reid. We caught up with Chris Benz at the showroom and asked him about his anti-holiday holiday capsule and his advice for scoring on eBay. Here's what he had to say.

Racked: What was the inspiration for your capsule?
Chris Benz: We really wanted it to feel like a mini gift collection, and have everything relate to everything else. To that end, we developed everything as being these great things to take with you while you're traveling, in particular on a plane.

Racked: We notice there are no traditional Christmas colors involved [Ed note: We then took a moment here to compliment him on his amazing flaming pink hair, which is even more magnificent in person.]
CB: It delivers around the same time as our Resort collection, and I feel like sometimes Resort is more exciting than Christmas. But I want it to feel beautiful and rich and luxurious, too, with the nudes and the camels.

Racked: With Target also working with multiple designers for holiday, it seems like collectives are having something of a moment. What do you think of the trend?
CB: I think it's good. I'm always excited to do things that are not what we do everyday at the studio, which is sort of narrow sometimes in terms of womenswear and the collection and all that. For me, it was really fun to do other little categories, like the stationary, and just to experiment. It was good for my heart and my spirit to see that we could do other things, too.

Racked: How does it work for your brand to be positioned next to a brand like Steven Alan, for example, which is grounded in Americana heritage and has such a different feel?
CB: Everyone's stuff kind of enriches everyone else's, because it is so different and everybody had a different perspective. But it does feel very special and limited and holiday to me, too.

Racked: Do you shop eBay personally?
CB: I'm a very advanced eBay shopper. I'm one of those shoppers that likes to search a vague, broad search term so that I can go on an adventure of finding new things and new sellers, and kind of lose yourself in it for a little while, rather than go one a mission of finding one thing. That's a lot of the genius of eBay, that there is so much quantity of thing on it that you can literally spend hours and hours and end up in a place that you never expected, and find something completely random.

Racked: What's your best ever eBay score?
CB: I'm into really, really old, ratty t-shirts right now, which are actually really hard to find because people just throw them out.

Racked: How do you search "ratty t-shirt" on eBay?
CB: You just go through the thesaurus and then plug in every synonym for ratty you can find.

Head here to see all the products and pricing.

· eBay Unveils Holiday Collection: Presenting the Complete Lookbook Plus Pricing [Racked]
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