John Donne Would Have Loved This Email

All right. I kinda, sorta promised myself that I wouldn’t write or think anymore about Amazon for a bit. Then, whoosh! Into my inbox came a gorgeous email from something called Amazon Fashion and featuring a winter coat from Badgley Mischka. Beautifully photographed, warm and wonderful. Enthusiastic model. No price indicated. I immediately wanted to know more.

            If F. Scott Fitzgerald is right (it increasingly seems he is my go-to philosopher of all things mercantile) and, ”The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function,” let’s just admit that Amazon and Badgley Mischka believe in our genius.  

            I loved the email, since it repositions both entities in one instant. The terms “Amazon” and “Fashion” are no longer oxymoronic. No longer the fodder for a metaphysical poet “yoking by violence together” radically different ideas. And Badgley Mischka too, suddenly leaps from the crowded runway as an edgy, risk-taking retail innovator.

            My research with shoppers is consistent: They want to feel “lucky.”

            My conversations with retailers are equally consistent: They discount their way to delivering that “lucky” feeling (rather than figuring out how else it might be conjured to stimulate meaning AND margin).

           So profound congratulations, Badgley Mischka and Amazon. Something significant this way comes. Watch that space.

Eager to know what you think.

Kate

kate@katenewlin.com