Fashion industry Logo-ed out?
I never have understood why I should pay $100-$200 more for a pair of jeans just because of the brand associated with it. I mean how much better quality denim can they have? Are their rivets made from a more precious metal? Do they really make me look that much better than the cheaper pair?
Of course the answer to all of these is usually NO. The answer is this, we do it because we care what other people think. We care about our image. There are a lot of interesting parallels between the clothing you wear, the car you drive etc, and getting your own brand identity professionally designed. Basically no one wants to look like a cheapskate, but that is another discussion entirely.
Lately, Hollywood stars have tried to combat the appearance of looking cheap, by letting everyone know exactly how much money they have by wearing apparel with the high-end designer of the day’s logo plastered all over it. “See how rich I am? I have a bag made by so-and-so, the best designer EVER!” At least this week anyways.
Reality is that the $1,499 designer bag is pulling leather from the same cows, eating in the same pasture, as the $49.99 Happy-Mart bag. Honestly, do cows in Italy have better skin than the cows in North Dakota? Maybe they hydrate and exfoliate their hide more often.
Well copycats have caught on, and say ‘to heck’ with copyright laws. As with pirates stealing other forms of intellectual property such as music and video and reselling it for dirt cheap, now they are stealing the logos of these designers and throwing them all over their own bags and selling them for dirt cheap. See that bag that Nichole RichHilt has, well I just saw a mom getting into her station wagon with the EXACT same bag! Now EVERYONE has a bag made by so-and-so, EVERYONE is rich, and now EVERYONE…looks exactly the same.
For example, one of these bags costs $1,070.00 retail, and the other costs $59.00…can you spot the fake man-purse?
Hollywood cannot have this, they are supposed to be the ELITE, the people we all want to be, the ‘Royalty’ of our era…in their minds. So what are they doing to combat designer logo piracy? Well, they are ditching the logos of course. This article talks more about the new “Stealth Wealth” era of fashion that is upon us, at least for the rest of this week.
It looks like it is going to be a lot more difficult to be a golddigger, without the help of having the same high-end logo printed 15,000 times on the side of a purse, in case you missed it the other 14,999 times. We will see how long this lasts with celebrities, my bet is as long their 15 minutes does.
Answer: the one on the right is the original, the left is the fake.