A Bay Area heist comedy centers on three women “boosters” who shoplift luxury items and resell them as the Velvet Gang. Each member has a different motive: starting a philanthropic fashion movement, earning money for children, or gaining access to the fashion industry as an ambitious designer. The story opens with the leader luring a man to her apartment showroom to sell shoes rather than seduce him. The gang’s main target is Metro Designers, a street-glam chain owned and run by celebrity designer Christie Smith. The plot is structured around color lines, with the boosters being Black and their heists relying on a white decoy who distracts salesclerks so the group can escape with merchandise.
"For starters, Riley offers a heist movie, set in the Bay Area, centered on a trio of women "boosters"-shoplifters who resell their wares-known as the Velvet Gang. Each member has her own motive. Mariah (Taylour Paige) wants to start a movement called Fashion Forward Filanthropy. Sade (Naomi Ackie), who has children, needs the money. Corvette (Keke Palmer), the leader of the pack, is an ambitious designer who wants a foot in the door."
"The movie opens with Corvette luring a man from a club to her apartment-which is more of a showroom, where she intends not to seduce him but to sell him a pair of shoes. She's got loot from all sorts of places, but the gang has one main target: a chain of street-glam stores called Metro Designers, owned and run by a celebrity designer named Christie Smith (Demi Moore)."
"This setup is built along color lines, both racial and otherwise. The Velvet Gang's members are Black, and their heists involve the partnership of a white woman who serves as a decoy, by monopolizing salesclerks' attention and leaving the threesome free to slip out with loads of merchandise."
Read at The New Yorker
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