Wearing designer clothing was not done in our household while I was growing up, but then with five children, my parents probably did not have sufficient money to encourage us to think about wearing designer clothing. That has stayed with me and I do not think of wearing designer clothing even now that I can pay for them.
However, these days, most children seem to be conscious of designer clothing. This probably illustrates the power of advertising and the fact that contemporary advertisers are more ruthless in targeting children than there antecedents in the Fifties and Sixties were.
The problem with children wanting to wear designer clothing though is that they do not understand why they ought to wear a particular garment, they merely see the adverts and the fact that their idols and friends are wearing them.
There is a decent argument for wearing designer clothing but imitation is not one of them. Neither is having been persuaded to by advertisers and friends. The single good reason for preferring designer clothing is because you like a designer’s style and theme. Most designers have a particular style although this can altered from year to year.
A great deal of designers splatter their names all over their clothes, which ruins them for me. However, all clothing designers like to have their name or logo in a prominent position. They do this for two reasons: firstly to promote because otherwise their clothing is not distinctive enough ( a Lacrosse sweater without the crocodile is unrecognizable); and secondly, so that the wearer can show off the fact that they are wearing designer clothing.
Often clothing designers will branch out into other regions of designer wear. For instance, Gucci endorse shoes, sunglasses and wrist watches. Gucci is hoping that if you like their shoes you will also want their sunglasses and wrist watches as well. In fact, this tactic works well. Wearers of designer clothing build up a relationship with the designers that they like and are more likely to trust that brand.
The difficulty for most people is the cost. Designer clothing is a lot more costly than regular clothing and that is how it is meant to be, because part of the rationale for wearing designer clothing is snob value – to set yourself apart from the herd. This allows clothing designers to earn vast profits which opens up another difficulty – counterfeiting.
Where there is a chance of big profits you will find counterfeits, fakes or copies.If you are inexpert at recognizing designer clothing, you could easily get sucked into spending a lot of money on counterfeit items. Often it is not the clothing itself that is copied, although that is done as well, but the accessories are imitated a lot.
I have no statistics, but I would not be surprised if there are ten times as many counterfeit Gucci sunglasses in the world as real ones. So be careful, particularly if you do not have sight of what you are buying, as in the case of the Internet and be cautious of market stalls and back street bulk traders.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on a variety of topics, but is now concerned with the jean jacket. If you would like to know more, please visit our website at Mens Overcoats For Sale.
(that is the brave one).