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Clothing with Logos on it - Page 3

post #31 of 41
11/11/08 at 4:27am
Quote:
Originally Posted by DocHolliday View Post
The question, to me, is, what is the appeal of the conspicuous logo? To telegraph that you're wearing something expensive? To signal you're in the right clique, wearing the right clothes? Neither strikes me as appealing.

If not those options, then what? Why sport an H belt other than to advertise you're wearing Hermes? It's not that there's anything inherently appealing about wearing a random letter at your waist -- I don't see anyone rocking a J belt.

Too often, people confuse branding with style, and so it doesn't surprise SF doesn't go for logos.

Agreed. I don't mind logos on certain things. If I'm being really casual in shorts and a t-shirt, I'll grab a Billabong or Volcom shirt without thought, but these also aren't brands to show your "wearing something expensive"...just run of the mill shirts. Same with Nike shoes or shorts when playing sports. But I can't stand those Versace, Affliction, etc... shirts that look like garbage with the logo sprayed everywhere to let everyone know that you are wearing it as the sole intent is more often than not to show who the shirt is made by. As for what I wear out, dress shirts, jackets, etc... I don't like wearing logos at all as it just looks tacky imo.
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post #32 of 41
11/11/08 at 6:57am
The apostrophe in the thread title is getting to me ...
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post #33 of 41
11/11/08 at 7:20am
Quote:
Originally Posted by penguin vic View Post
The apostrophe in the thread title is getting to me ...
ya fixed. BTW Penguin Vic...if you are interested...
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post #34 of 41
11/11/08 at 9:21am
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post #35 of 41
11/11/08 at 9:29am
Quote:
Originally Posted by presence View Post
I would love to purchase a 3-button Lacoste polo, but it has that damn alligator. It drives me crazy. I am not going to act as a billboard for the company. Here I am paying a premium for a shirt, and I am helping to advertise for the company. Forget that. If only you have the option to get a piece of the clothing without their logo. That would definitely be thinking of the customer.

George Clooney wears his clothes without logos and looks amazing.
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post #36 of 41
10/15/11 at 8:00am
I found a new article relating to this topic. I know this thread is old, but better raise an old one than create a new thread on the same or similar subject.

Link: http://www.economist.com/node/18483423?story_id=18483423&CFID=160796263&CFTOKEN=71303356

Article:

Clothes may make the man, but it is the label that really counts

Mar 31st 2011

What more could a boy want?

DESIGNERS of fancy apparel would like their customers to believe that wearing their creations lends an air of wealth, sophistication and high status. And it does—but not, perhaps, for the reason those designers might like to believe, namely their inherent creative genius. A new piece of research confirms what many, not least in the marketing departments of fashion houses, will long have suspected: that it is not the design itself that counts, but the label.

Rob Nelissen and Marijn Meijers of Tilburg University in the Netherlands examined people’s reactions to experimental stooges who were wearing clothes made by Lacoste and Tommy Hilfiger, two well-known brands that sell what they are pleased to refer to as designer clothing. As the two researchers show in a paper about to be published in Evolution and Human Behavior, such clothes do bring the benefits promised: co-operation from others, job recommendations and even the ability to collect more money when soliciting for charity. But they work only when the origin of the clothes in question is obvious.

In the first experiment, volunteers were shown pictures of a man wearing a polo shirt. The photo was digitally altered to include no logo, a designer logo (Lacoste or Hilfiger) or a logo generally regarded as non-luxury, Slazenger. When the designer logo appeared, the man in the picture was rated as of higher status (3.5 for Lacoste and 3.47 for Hilfiger, on a five-point scale, compared with 2.91 for no logo and 2.84 for Slazenger), and wealthier (3.4 and 3.94 versus 2.78 and 2.8, respectively).

To see if this perception had an effect on actual behaviour, the researchers did a number of other experiments. For instance, one of their female assistants asked people in a shopping mall to stop and answer survey questions. One day she wore a sweater with a designer logo; the next, an identical sweater with no logo. Some 52% of people agreed to take the survey when faced with the Tommy Hilfiger label, compared with only 13% who saw no logo.

In another experiment, volunteers watched one of two videos of the same man being interviewed for a job. In one, his shirt had a logo; in the other, it did not. The logo led observers to rate the man as more suitable for the job, and even earned him a 9% higher salary recommendation.

Charitable impulses were affected, too. When two of the team’s women went collecting for charity on four consecutive evenings, switching between designer and non-designer shirts, they found that wearing shirts with logos brought in nearly twice as much—an average per answered door of 34 euro cents (48 American ones) compared with 19 euro cents when logo-less. It seems, then, that labels count. The question is, why?

The answer, Dr Nelissen and Dr Meijers suspect, is the same as why the peacock with the best tail gets all the girls. People react to designer labels as signals of underlying quality. Only the best can afford them. To test that idea, they checked how people responded to a logo they knew had cost the wearer nothing. To do this, they asked their volunteers to play a social-dilemma game, in which both sides can benefit from co-operating, but only at the risk of being taken advantage of.

Each volunteer was given €2 in 10 cent coins and told he (or she) could transfer as much as desired to an unseen partner, and that any amount transferred would be doubled. If both partners transferred all of their money, each would end up with €4. But because there was no guarantee that the unseen partner would give back any money at all, players tended to hedge their bets, and transfer only some money.

When shown a picture of their purported partner wearing a designer shirt, volunteers transferred 36% more than when the same person was shown with no logo (95 cents, as opposed to 70 cents). But when told that the partner was wearing a shirt given by the experimenters, the logo had no effect on transfers. The shirt no longer represented an honest signal.

This study confirms a wider phenomenon. A work of art’s value, for example, can change radically, depending on who is believed to have created it, even though the artwork itself is unchanged. And people will willingly buy counterfeit goods, knowing they are knock-offs, if they bear the right label. What is interesting is that the label is so persuasive. In the case of the peacock, the tail works precisely because it cannot be faked. An unhealthy bird’s feathers will never sparkle. But humans often fail to see beyond the superficial. For humans, then, the status-assessment mechanism is going wrong.

Presumably what is happening is that a mechanism which evolved to assess biology cannot easily cope with artefacts. If the only thing you have to assess is the quality of a tail, evolution will tend to make you quite good at it. Artefacts, though, are so variable that mental shortcuts are likely to be involved. If everyone agrees something has high status, then it does. But that agreement often transfers the status from the thing to the label. Maybe a further million years or so of evolution will eliminate this failing. In the meantime, marketers can open another bottle of champagne.
===============

For the lazy: some comments relating to the study (in bold and italics respectively):

Link: http://www.economist.com/node/18483423/comments

The study is interesting but it fails in a critical element: The conclusion is only valid to middle and middle-high class segments. High class individuals react more to textures, degingn... and even the presence of labels could be considered a little vulgar.
Low classes at the contrary, have another type of "brands" (some hip hope cloths are really expensive and holds a high status in the ghetto but in a middle-high class reunion are considered only a ghetto-trend, ergo low status regardless of the prize).
However, the most annoying result of this estudy is that as adults through time we focus more in the absolute value of things and this kind of behaviour seems to be in a way forgotten; and as obvious as it seems, the empirical evidence of its persistance is a slap in the face and a reminder of the heterogenous of our society (and how some individuals ridiculously mantain their teenager value system long after the its chronological period...).

nteresting, but some of the experiments are flawed. specifically the experiments where women go out in the shopping mall wearing a logo shirt one day versus no-logo the next day.
In such an experiment, the wearer of the clothes knows what she is wearing and this will be reflected in her confidence.
If I KNOW i am wearing an Armani suit made in Italy as opposed to some Chinese knockoff, i will naturally feel more confident regardless of whether the logo is displayed or not.

But here's the interesting marginal phenomenon: at least among men, when you pierce the veil of the upper-middle class and move to the land of the truly affluent, there seems to be a drive away obnoxiously apparent designer labelling. A prime example would be the Ralph Lauren brands: Polo Ralph Lauren has labels everywhere; most Purple Label clothes have no labels (external) whatsoever.
I wonder if there is some sort of inflection (or even reversal) point -- it would be interesting to see this study carried out across a range of carefully segmented socioeconomic groups.

Interestingly, genuine overruns of Lacoste and Hilfiger are sold in factory outlets in Asia for a couple of dollars a pop.
Then there are those who will only wear label free brands, still brands nonetheless, such as Giorgio Armani or Ermenezildo Zegna or Brioni or Kiton or Anderson and Shepperd... Its still the same difference. They won't wear a Top Man because somehow.... they just don't do that. Its the reverse snobbery of wearing something horrendously overpriced for the sake of not displaying a label.
Everything we do is about signalling. At one level we wear Hilfiger to signal to the audience whom we believe will respond to that signal. Likewise we wear Brioni to signal to a difference audience whom we believe will respond to that signal.
I knew a chap (bless his soul) who could afford to buy Patek Philippe SA but who usually wore a Citizen Ana Digi and I asked him one day, hey, why are you wearing that cheap watch when you can have any watch you want. (I was crass young idiot at the time. Still crass and idiotic but sadly no longer young. smile.gif "Because I can afford it" He said.

Far from obvious, I think the study is rather shocking for demonstrating how wide are the scope of the benefits the logo wearer obtains. It is almost axiomatic that the logo wearer would be seen as more qualified for a job, and would earn a higher salary, but it who would have predicted that wearing a sign of status/wealth would increase your ability to obtain charity! For that matter, what on earth does your status/wealth totem have to do with your ability to obtain cooperation in a random survey in the mall? I think the study demonstrates that the logo may have far more than a conscious-effect trigger of status/wealth, but may affect baseline subconscious perceptions of favorability/unfavorability.
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post #37 of 41
10/15/11 at 10:06am

I don't mind small logos (like the ones seen in most polos and casual shirts) altough I really dislike the Lacoste alligator.

 

However, I never understood the appeal of wearing a t-shirt that anounces to the world the date and place in which company was established.

 

wholesale-Armani-Exchange-Colorblock-V-Neck-T-Shirt_15289459514d44abf972ce71web_up_file.jpg

 

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post #38 of 41
10/15/11 at 11:57am
Paging Holdfast!
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post #39 of 41
10/15/11 at 9:05pm
Your clothing signals things about you, including the brands you prefer. Some branding is bold and obvious, some is subtle, but all of it communicates.

To eschew visible branding entirely requires a near-monastic level of devotion, especially when it comes to casual clothing like jeans and sneakers.

We have our own individual ideas of taste and class, while also (in this forum) reaching consensus on what is tasteful. But the 'better than thou' game gets tired.

I personally like polo shirts without anything on them. But the brand I like, Smedley, often has a point collar that is fairly unusual, so I can recognize one when I see one.

Back in the preppy times of the 80s, the most annoying boys were the ones who cut out the critter entirely, so ostentatious were they in their modesty.
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post #40 of 41
10/15/11 at 10:29pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Zoren View Post

I don't mind small logos (like the ones seen in most polos and casual shirts) altough I really dislike the Lacoste alligator.

 

However, I never understood the appeal of wearing a t-shirt that anounces to the world the date and place in which company was established.

 

wholesale-Armani-Exchange-Colorblock-V-Neck-T-Shirt_15289459514d44abf972ce71web_up_file.jpg

 


That's a bad Chinese knock-off of course. This sort of thing is popular in China though, especially with the Alpha Males.

Normally I would never wear anything which prominently shows a designer brand or logo.
467
The only exception been this hoodie which has the logo of a local Xilinhot designer, whom is a personal friend of mine.
467
Edited by MikeDT - 10/15/11 at 10:53pm
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post #41 of 41
10/15/11 at 10:49pm
It depends on the item.

I have a number of polo shirts - some with logo, some without. I find the shirts I enjoy wearing the most are my J.Crew (no logo) and Brooks Brothers. J.Crew because they fit me the best, BB because they are the best made (and my next BB polo shirts will probably fit me better now I know how BB polo sizing works). The BB ones have a logo on them, but because BB isn't a known brand where I live, it doesn't bother me much. I also have a Lacoste and PRL polo, the latter with the small pony. I tend to avoid wearing the PRL because it seems slightly douchey. As for the Lacoste ... it's a nice, comfy polo that fits me nearly as well as my J.Crew polos, so I'm happy to cop the little crocodile on it. I thrifted it anyway. :P

That said, I do like PRL as a brand. I have other PRL clothes sans logo (chinos, sweaters) and I have found the quality and comfort to be very good.
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