This just really angers me

I might not have a lot of sympathy for the bidders, but I sure have hate for the seller.  Yes, a fool and his money are easily separated.  But that doesn't justify the act of separating said money from said fool.  As for your example (FIHTies) of the man who couldn't tell a well constructed sevenfold from a polyester piece of crap (although, tangent here, I find that some lightweight summer ties gain something from the addition of some synthetic thread,) that guy may not appreciate your sevenfold, but that does not mean that you should try to sell him a lesser piece of crap for the same money.  You should tell him, not in so many words, that he is settling for a lesser quality product, and sell it to him for a fair price.

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But that is just my point, while it doesnt justify the removal of said money from said fool, many such said fool are perfectly happy and you can spit bllod trying to tell them that they didnt buy a zegna suit and in some cases you would be upsetting them and they would walk away thinking that YOU ARE THE FOOL.

I do get your point as to not selling the lesser piece of crap for the same monies (and I will be the first to discourage someone from buying something unless they are perfectly happy and satisfied. As I tell people that question why I discurage them from buying something... I am looking for customers that will be happy in a year+ from now with their purchases as those tend to be repeat customers. Not the ones that are smiling until they get home and then scratching their head wondering why they bought it) however i lose alot of respect and concern for people that are hellbent on getting that Brand name no matter what the cost, no matter what the look and no matter what the quality.

JJF

PS: My first batch of weaves (not the new arrivals on my site) has some of those wool/synthetic interfacings that you mention as I toyed with weights.

When you say he's doing it within the rules, I get very concerned. The description of Zegna, the fact that he guarantees that its authentic, where is the loophole in all of this.

And, how did everybody know it was a fake. Was it just the label?

You said its the fault of the customer for not doing the necessary research. But, would you really somebody to come in, ask you a lot of questions, and then leave and instead buy the item on ebay because it was cheaper.

Zegna is both a clothing manufacturer and a fabric producer. The suits they make themselves (what we refer to as Zegna suits) are generally pretty good quality ones with canvas construction, etc, that retail for $1500 or so. Of course, the fabric end of Zegna also makes fabric, which other companies can buy to use for suits.

What the seller is doing (a pretty common practice on eBay) is taking a suit that uses Zegna fabric, but was NOT constructed by Zegna. Most likely the manufacturer is just some cheap generic suit maker that wants to bolster its sales by attaching itself to the well established Zegna name. The "Tessuto" tag states that while the fabric was produced by Zegna, the actual suit itself was not, and thus is not subject to Zegna's quality standards. The uninformed buyer will not know the difference and pay a premium for the suit, expecting it to be Zegna-constructed.

The loophole is that the seller never states the suit itself was made by Zegna. There's a Zegna tag, and the fabric itself is Zegna, so he's not lying outright when he calls it a Zegna suit. Of course, we can tell that he fully expects the buyer the percieve the item as a Zegna-made suit of premium quality, and thus spend the extra money thinking they are getting a Zegna-made suit. But in the specific text of the auction he is not lying about anything, which places the burden on the reader. Given eBay's record, reporting him will not do anything because he hasn't openly lied in his auction.

The only thing that can be done to curb this behavior is get people to stop buying from dishonest sellers by exposing their dishonesty on forums like these. If any other forum members here were interested, it might be an interesting experiment to form a sort of watchdog group to scour auctions and warn bidders about blatantly dishonest sellers... any thoughts?

I understand, btw, FIHties and Rider, your frustrations at willfully ignorant customers.  I've tried on more than one occasion to show how a pair of jeans made with selvedge ring-ring denim of superior yarns, and with a more flattering cut and handfinishing, may be actually better than a pair of $30 stonewashed Arizona jeans from JC Penney.  To no avail.  Or why (and this is the most frustrating to me) how a belt cut from top quality English bridle leather, with hand tooling, is worth more than a belt made from rolled leatherboard.  The differences in this case were so obvious, even to the most untrained eye, and the ignorance was so profound, that I nearly cried from frustration.

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I find myself often involved in the same argument. It's often hard to really describe the difference and tell someone why it's better, and it's even worse when you can take a pair of PDCs and a pair of Express, try them on and then have someone say, "they look the same. They're just jeans."

The first time I ran into the "Tessuto Ermenegildo Zegna" issue was in Rome six or seven years ago. I was looking at the window display of some store and the proprietor invited me in. My wife said "hey, take a look, maybe you can get something nice." The guy offers me a suit coat and starts pointing at the label and saying "very nice suit--Tessuto Ermenegildo Zegna." I start looking at the suit in the mirror and there was clearly something "off" about it--the lapels weren't smooth and the shoulder seams didn't seem very clean. So I walked, thinking this guy was selling knockoff Zegnas. At the time I knew little about Zegna suits and owned a handful of their ties, but I figured that any high-end maker wouldn't have let a suit like this out of QC. Later I figured out that the label referred to the cloth and not the suitmaker.

Zegna could help to control this kind of problem by changing their textile labels to include something recognizable to non-Italian speakers. I suppose they are weighing the minor dilution of their name as is, against the unwieldiness of adding a "fabric supplied to producer by E. Zegna" to the fabric tags. Then again, I guess that, adding that kind of language to the tags probably wouldn't help many people . . .

Retronotmetro is sort of kind of on to something.

This is as much Zegna's fault as it is the seller here. Zegna sells the fabric to these companies making cheap suits knowing they will be passed off as Zegna or marked up unjustifiably because of the Zegna name.

Why does Zegna do this? Because they are able to charge the company a premium for the fabric beyond its inherent worth. They are essentially selling along with the fabric the right to use the cryptic "tessuto Zegna" tag to trick uninformed customers into overpaying for a suit. They are not so much dilutting their brand name as selling it to the highest bidder.

The real profit maker in all of this is the zegna fabric house. There is no way in hell that brandmaniac makes a lot of money off of this, simply because he is so easily replaceable. Any one of us could start the same ebay business if the profit was there. Same with the low end suit factory. Replaceable. Only the Zegna fabric mill is adding "value" to this equation. Hence, they will be the ones making all of the money off of the scam.

I would not place the blame on Zegna, although I think you make a good point. Zegna makes their fabrics available so that tailors can make good MTM suits (such as Chan, who to my understanding carries several great Zegna fabrics); I think scammers such as brandmaniac are an unfortunate byproduct of them selling out their fabrics.

The Zegna Soft auction I think irked me more than the Tessuto Zegna one. Why? Well, first of all the seller listed it as "New: Without Tags" when if you read through his idiot garble you see that it is clearly used (and it looks like its from the early 90s anyways).

The Zegna Soft auction I think irked me more than the Tessuto Zegna one. Â Why? Â Well, first of all the seller listed it as "New: Â Without Tags" when if you read through his idiot garble you see that it is clearly used (and it looks like its from the early 90s anyways).

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Well...Mctweeney is the proud owner of a new-like new-without tags, worn only 3/4/5 times (remove the slashes methinks...) What does that New mean when he lists the auction as Like new? But here is what I am talking about... You see...why didnt (assuming that the buyer was totally duped) Mctweeney, the winner  note the fact that its New or Like new depending on which part you read?  Why cant you see that the Seller didnt even take the time to steam the jacket (in the pic of the rear he has creases galore).  The seller makes no attempt to discuise the pix and make the suit more presentable. (aside from sounding like a half wit...I mean fellahs...would any of you last 30 seconds listening to a guy like that if he were a salesman in a store?)(For those that havent had the pleasure of checking out the sale...here is a quote...I lparticularly oved the "There sofffffffft line" part. "ItJustDoesn'tGetAnyBetterThanThis MEN THIS  SUIT  IS  'TOPPPPPPPPPS '( for sure Geeezz) It Is Marks  "SOFT"  so I call It "There Softtttt Line" ... IT'S  LIKE BRAND  NEW .....  ITS ALMOST LIKE SOMEONE HAD BOUGHT IT ( for a wee sum of 2,000 / $3,000) THEN JUST WORN  IT  3/4/5 TIMES MAXXXXXXX  ....  NO  JIVE ........THE, Material still Feels Crisp ... the Pocket's and Lining white /not soiled ...Their are no Outstanding Mark , Spots , TEARS >>>>  NAD A  >>>  NUT N  > IT  IS  P E R F E C T  ...  my word on that/Rick  ...  ;-)  ... "" To the victor belong the spoils... It is unfortunate I guess.  Almost pathetic. Have a great weekend all. JJF Edited for the ps: PS: Its worth a trip to his page and read up on the feedback he has... Was 99.8% and just changed his original na,e just for the ...hic Ups and Giggles... Bring 2 aspirin to this page

Brian -- Certainly Zegna could make some attempt to control who they sell their fabric to. The fact that Chan is authorized to buy Zegna fabric does not mean that every asian tailor outfit in the world should have access.

FIH -- That has to be one of the ten greatest/worst/greatest sales pitches in the history of the world. If jesus wrote like that, I would be a christian.

While I agree that it is quite nauseating to see someone pay $350 for a mediocre used suit sold by some marsupial whose English is worse than that of a remedial class third grader, I have to agree with FIHTies that the buyer isn't too bright either. The reason brandmaniac is so loathsome is that while he does follow the letter of the rules, he is successful at advertising through his sin of omission, such that any buyer without a good knowledge of clothing or Zegna clothing could be decieved into believing the suits he sells were really $2000 Zegna-made models.

Aside from the Zegna Soft confusion, suits4less4ever does note explicitly that his suits are pre-worn, even if he does so in shifty terms and moronic language. If seeing a "like new" suit (that's pretty much ebay-speak for "definitely used" anyway) that is mentioned as having been worn "3... oh wait I mean 4, or maybe 5... err 6 times" and has poorly presented pictures attached doesn't set off red flags, then honestly, the buyer doesn't really deserve much sympathy for paying $350 for that piece of crap. Sure, it would be nice to see that idiot seller get lost, if only for the fact that his auction text makes me feeler dumber for having read it, but aside from his savage assault on the English language, his auction is not as shady as brandmaniac's are. It's hard to feel a lot of pity for tmcweeny, whereas I really do feel bad for people who get misled into thinking they're buying top-of-the-line suits from brandmaniac.

Whoah, that was a trip. Now I'm really thinking that I should go buy a large lot of old Giorgio Armani (yeeeeehhaaaaaw&#33 and Zegnnnnnaaaaaa suits from the eighties (you can get them for about 20$ apiece), and just sell them at a 1000% markup on Ebay using my pure selling skilz. I could seriously use the cash. I have to give it to him - the guy was at least not lying. Did you read his in depth description of his quality? Under most systems, his "near new" would have been "fair", and his "great" would have been closer to "ripped straight off a homeless dude." I guess a fool and his money are determined to be separated.

Just to give you a hint of how enraged I was, I emailed Mr. Zegna Soft seller two days ago when I saw the auction already getting out of control. You think his auction is bad? Check out my email exchange with him. (A combination of Bush's campaign ads and the auction had really gotten me pissed off that night).


Dear Suits4less4ever,

This suit sucks. You are a total crook -- $2000 or $3000 retail ******. You should be ashamed. Zegna Soft is the absolute bottom of the barrel Zegna and you try to pass it off as superior -- and worse, pass it off as "new." Just awful.

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its sounds as if you are a 'DRUNK , FOOLMOUTHED , KNOW IT ALL ,POO
POO HEAD .,... at any rate It was a : Guess IM KNEW TO " ZEGNA
and al i have seen were the &&&&&&&&& costly ones .... SO THERE
hehehehehhahahahaha asasasasss
thx much
remdber
Godiswithyou&inyouforever&alway

I like how he added the "God is with you" line after giving you his frothing at the mouth marsupial rant. Seriously, you'd be better off talking to the bidders and showing them these kind of threads (maybe a forward to tmcweeny, even if he did mess up royally?). It's pretty clear most of the dishonest/foolish sellers won't get the message unless there's an economic harm facing them.

Like I said, if anyone wants to organize a way to warn bidders/deter shady sellers, I'm game.

I especially like this line: "INSIDE TAG READS ~ ~ Made In Switzerland , 100% Pure Wool , modal # 2819GM --Fabric Content # , 632740 5 , oh yea the size too , 56 euro which = 46 USA , Plus More .... IT'S JUST BADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD WHICH = GOOOOD" I knew I was getting screwed when I bought my "˜supposedly ' Napoli Couture suit, since the tag is missing: "IT'S JUST BADDDDDDDDDDDDDDDDD WHICH = GOOOOD" LOL. Another winner is: "And in Helping you feel more comfortable in doing business with me ,do this...http://cgi2.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAP...rid=suits4less PLease' Click On"this ebay Link ..It will take you to SUITS4LESS which wasmy 1st Ebay Bizzz ..There you'll see a99.8% + Positive Feedback ...I had that business for two years, decided to change names ..just for , Hic-ups & Giggles . ." Yeah, that's the same reason Philip Morris changed their name to Altria, just for "hic-ups and giggles". And don't forget folks: "DRY- CLEANING IS ALWAYS A MUST" ...." Damn, I wish I knew that before I threw my cashmere / silk Purple Label sports coat in the washer and dryer. Jon.