A group of Bay Area shoplifters called the Velvet Gang sells stolen clothing at lower prices to neighbors who cannot afford it. Their leader Corvette and her friends use diversions to disrupt a fast-fashion retailer that releases monthly color-based collections. Corvette’s plan shifts when she learns the retailer’s owner, a celebrated fashion designer, has stolen one of her designs and is selling it as her own. The crew targets Metro Designer stores to seek revenge and disrupt the business. A Chinese factory worker, Jianhu, joins with her own reasons to bring the designer down and uses a technologically advanced teleporter device to escalate their disruptive actions.
"Leader Corvette (Keke Palmer) and her friends Sade (Naomi Ackie) and Mariah (Taylour Paige) are folk heroes in the Bay Area for selling the clothes they steal for cheaper prices to people in the neighborhood who couldn't otherwise afford them. "Fashion-forward philanthropy" is how Mariah describes their ethos. They're pros at causing diversions and confusing employees, especially at Metro Designer, a Forever 21-like chain that churns out monthly collections based on a specific color."
"But things get personal when Corvette realizes Metro Designer's owner, the world-renowned fashion designer Christie Smith (Demi Moore), has stolen one of her designs and is selling it as Christie's own work. With vengeance in mind, Corvette and the crew decide to rip off every single Metro Designer store they can and in doing so make an unlikely ally in Chinese factory worker Jianhu (Poppy Liu). Jianhu has her own motives for wanting to bring Christie down, and when she joins the Velvet Gang with a technologically advanced teleporter device, their disruptive plans kick into high gear."
"Amid all the riotously vibrant production design and uniquely wide shots made possible by custom Panavision lenses, most of Riley's themes are fairly accessible. Shoplifting is fine because megacompanies led by billionaires are the actual thieves of our labor, creativity, and time. Fast fashion is built off inhumane practices and methods that hurt, even kill, workers. Neoliberalism as an ideology insists that we're all singular snowflakes who can express ourselves through what we wear, when in reality our power comes from collectivism."
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