Style Forum's obsession with labels and brands

Originally Posted by GTR

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How does a hand-stitched suit from China compare with one made in a sweat shop in Italy?

+1

I think it's worth pointing out that it's probably fairer to say just "sweatshops" versus "hand-stitched", without the use of the national identifiers. So long as the company trains its workers well and treats them fairly is all that really matters.

I'll try and write something more long-winded and self-righteous next time.

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

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Your response, while well-reasoned and thoughtful, is simply not long enough.


- B

Just because someone agrees to pay retail doesn't make them a sucker. Quite often you arrive at that point after wasting years and tens of thousands of dollars on "bargains" that you wound up giving to the deserving poor. Buying the right thing, the first time, with no regrets, is worth a great deal of money.

But hey, knock yourself out. Personally, I'm tired of buying other people's hand-me-downs.

Originally Posted by Frodo

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Just because someone agrees to pay retail doesn't make them a sucker. Quite often you arrive at that point after wasting years and tens of thousands of dollars on "bargains" that you wound up giving to the deserving poor. Buying the right thing, the first time, with no regrets, is worth a great deal of money. But hey, knock yourself out. Personally, I'm tired of buying other people's hand-me-downs.
That's pretty good advice, buy one perfect suit and call it your precious?

Academe , we're taking a lesson in proselytism...
Write a pamphlet long enough to bring suicidal thoughts to the reader and you would have won the non-existent argument...
We have saved by Vox's quick wit from a collective philosophical and sartorial values breakdown...

Originally Posted by Film Noir Buff

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That's pretty good advice, buy one perfect suit and call it your precious?

Yes, it's way better than buying a cheaper one and forever you're left with a feeling of "My suit can be better". That's probably the whole idea behind bespoke.

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

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**** thrift.

- B

I nominate this as post of the year...

Originally Posted by George

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I nominate this as post of the year...

True thrift can be admirable. Cheapness? Never.


- B

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

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True thrift can be admirable. Cheapness? Never.


- B

Very true. There is a difference between price and value.

Originally Posted by academe

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I think you really need to decide for yourself where your own priorities lie, and try not to force or impress your opinion too much on other people here. What I object to is not so much your opinion (which is a perfectly valid one), but your need to demonstrate that your opinion is really the only right one. As someone else said earlier, the subject of style is highly personal and often very subjective, especially amongst a group of clothing-obsessed aficionado's like this one. I don't think normal economic metrics or analyses necessarily apply. How much of this is really about your ego and need to be "right" as opposed to the arguments themselves?
+1 His post somewhat revolves around a comparison between two equal people with the same amount of money. I've yet to meet two equal people with the same amount of money on this board. I dislike thrifting, simply because i find used clothing to be more of a terror then anything else, the 2 used jackets i've bought were both a pain **********. Both misrepresented by the buyer to some extent, which of course caused me to spend additional money at the tailor. There is some value to the idea that you're the first person wearing this, meaning that you know for the most part, nothing terrible has been done to the jacket, it hasnt been drycleaned 100 times, it hasnt been irripairably altered, its not 20+ years old, ect. I would still by preowned, but the price needs to be right, and i'm extremely picky about it. Its much less stress inducing for me to simply go to the store and buy what i want, even if it takes longer to and costs more.

I do remember a colleague of mine going on about the prices of my RTW Lobb ...
When I did point out to him that he is actually driving a £35000 pounds who lost 30% of its value as soon as it left the garage , he immediatly stopped going on about my clothes..
We all spend a certain amount of money dedicated to certain activities that others will find pure madness..
It is human nature to criticize other people's priorities...
Some of us spend 3 k on a suit when other spend the same amount going out,dining, smoking , drinking or on some cruises/holidays..
It took me years to understand that without emotions and passion we will live a very sad life...
The pure economic benchmark is only one of many factors on style forum..

Originally Posted by yfyf

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How can you be so extravagant??!! I use trash bags with holes for head and arms


Before SF, I often wore store brands. Now my rotation is strictly Glad / Hefty. When you consider the superior cut and higher durability of Hefty, the brand can actually be LESS expensive in the long run. In a business situation I usually go with Glad, even though it is a bit less durable. Image is everything.

Originally Posted by theorientalist

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I'm disappointed at the tone as well as the progress of the discussion, mostly centered around beating a straw man and ad hominem attacks.

Let us begin with a real-life example, which should illustrate the ideas involved.

I have two friends who are students, and hence their income is limited. Both are into traditional style. They each won a cash prize of £500 each recently in a contest, which will be their spending money on clothes for the rest of the year.

One of my friends put up his £500 for a made-to-measure Tweed suit from Bookster.
He is very particular about details, and nit-picked the specifications to his heart's desire.

The other friend, through bargain hunting in vintage markets and judicious bidding on Ebay, as well as taking advantage of the recent Ralph Lauren sale, with the same £500 managed to buy:

A navy three-piece vintage suit
A two piece grey herring bone tweed suit
Two excellent tweed sport coats
A three-piece black pinstripe suit
A Barbour wax-jacket

A pair of Grenson oxblood semi-brogues
A pair of Grenson tan oxfords
A pair of Barker black brogues
A pair of Barker half-weaves
A pair of Loake tan brogues
A pair of Sebago boat shoes

as well as an entire collection of vintage ties, a collection of sleepwear, four sweaters and two pants from RLPL and a travel grooming set.

Who was the savvier shopper?

Let us approach the solution from an economist's point of view;

This is the crux of my argument:

Money is the resource which we depend upon, and that we all have a finite amount of.

To maximize functional utility of our finite resources, where style is our rationale, we should search for the most efficient way of satisfying our style requirements or desires while spending the least possible amount of money.

Perhaps I am not taking into account the natural environment of the average SFer. I live in London which is sartorial heaven, especially with regards to traditional style; High-quality shoes can be found
cheaply and plentifully in charity shops and on ebay, as can well-made vintage suits, overcoats and tweed jackets, and more modern options online, and there is no lack of quality accessory options and what's more, a social environment welcoming to the traditional stylist.

I imagine the fashion situation in small town America, or down under in Australia is different totally, hence the need to trade for things online here and hence the premium you pay, and the devotion to a cluster of brands.

Some questions responded to.

"I don't do a cost/benefit analysis before I buy a pair of shoes. I like the shoes, I can afford the shoes, I buy the shoes. "

You just did. If you can afford the shoes, you just performed a cost-benefit analysis and that means the costs were well within your means.

"Indeed there is a logical fallacy at hand. Yours. You assume equal quality at a given price point and for the most part you are suffering under the delusion of branding. Just because it's a "luxury" label doesn't equate to quality construction."

Here is a straw man argument: I never made the assumption of Label group A items being of similar quality; the question here was why do we prize items from group B even though they are similarly priced, but disparage items from group A?

Part of the reason, as the consensus goes, is that they don't provide value and are poorly made. I agree. But most importantly I think mostly we simply do not like the designs they produce and the cachet that surrounds these brands.

The implication of my argument which you neglected was that Styleforum is no different from Haute couture-buying, label and trend obsessed fashionistas, except that our labels are different, our style is different, and our trends remain traditional; More on this later.

"Labels are indicators of quality--either good or bad--and that is why it is reasonable for the vast majority of consumers to place stock in them. Most people lack both the expertise and the time/patience to judge each piece on its individual merits, rather than relying on the label as a proxy for quality."

Labels indicate nothing, because in this day and age branding and marketing is everything.
Most people do not place inordinate time and effort researching clothing as we do, and hence they
are susceptible to mass-marketing and branding. Look at the most popular brands and labels- they hardly are paragons of quality clothing, but absolute geniuses at marketing. Hence, the masses are not to be trusted, and less so the advertising agencies.

Our conception of a brand as being of good quality is the result of good marketing and most probably word-of-mouth, which is generally trusted as the penultimate indicator of quality. And the place we
recieve word-of-mouth in lieu of actual recommendations from people in the real world is here- and with the same niche of traditional brands being promoted, branding is still prevalent, albeit on a smaller and subtler scale.

But is quality really such a huge factor in influencing our decision to buy something? It may refer to the longevity of an item, but these days we hardly wear our clothing and shoes ragged as people did in the past, and our constant drive to acquire new items means often increasing our wardrobe so past acquisitions hardly see the wear necessary to really test longevity. So the concept you are actually measuring is 'durability'.

Quality is elusive to define- is it because it is supposedly made of better quality fabrics or leather? Concepts of 'better quality leather' and 'top quality fabric" were invented to sell leather and fabrics more expensively to shoemakers, and ultimately to you. The only way we can perceive "quality" is through aesthetics- the feel, the colour, the look.

Quality, then is an issue of Design. We resist things that look cheap, because we do not want to appear cheap - socio-economic factors influence our aesthetic. We resist things that feel coarse and rough,
because we prioritize comfort. Physical well-being influences our aesthetic. We accord ourselves a certain social status which comes from purchasing an item from a niche, expensive brand (as well as the bragging rights on the forum)- the need to boost our ego influences our aesthetic, in a subtle way.

"and why wear clothes in the first place? aren't loincloths and togas enough?"

This is trolling. Starting a discussion on a forum isn't.

"Thrift IS a virtue....that's why I shop here...."

And while good deals are to be had on the style forum sales boards, better deals are to be had on
Ebay. I think the FS section is good for only really obscure items that you would not be able to get otherwise.

"a brand tends to garner a desirable reputation through being reliably good quality."

New brands do, and have to- they will not be able to survive by selling low-quality products.

"I am someone who always tries to work out the economy of things when I buy something, read "cheap ass bargain hunter". So if a pair of good quality long lasting shoes that normally sells for $900 and I can get it for $400, why wouldn't I buy it? To me, I am not spending $400, I'm saving $500 because I need shoes anyway. if spending $400 can make you a happy man, why not? "

This is a false economy- you're still paying far more than a reasonable pair of shoes should cost, and you would probably be able to find similar on ebay for much less. While there always may be a cheaper option out there you may not be able to find, don't kid yourself that you're saving $500. Think of it as wasting $400-x dollars, where x is the probable cheaper price you'd be able to get it at.

This extends to happiness as well. Wouldn't you be happier not getting ripped off?
If I was absolutely in love with a pair of shoes that cost $400, and I had exhausted all other options
or possibility that it could be cheaper elsewhere, I would certainly be happy with the purchase.

"One of my friends makes about $500/week, but he buys audio equipment that's worth 10s of thousand dollars, I don't blame him. why? Its his passion, he's free to spend his own money on whatever he wants.

I am not questioning the freedom of every person to spend his money as they see fit- but would you not think him foolish if he could be paying a third of what he is right now for similar sound quality, but stubbornly sticks to established brands of sound equipment?

Also, efficient application of finite resources, in this case, money, is a discipline.

"How do you come to the conclusion that the prices paid by members are frequently 'appalling'? Prices are set by a market mechanism - and in the long run are defined by what people are prepared to pay for them. I'd say that the price of a D&G suit is no more appalling than that of an A&S suit or a pair of EG shoes or a JAB thrift suit. They are all an indicator - from the manufacturer/retailer - of what he believes people are willing to pay. "

One of the most valid questions; I illustrated the scale of the sums involved in my initial example, which is a true story, and recent. People are prepared to pay large sums for luxury brands mostly for the social clout; rarely does factor in- well illustrated by the masses of poorly-dressed, luxury brand wearing nouveau riche. I can break down the costs with examples from the FS board, if you would like.

I do understand, however, that certain items have a market value that will not be trifled with- and in this case, it becomes a matter of functional utility. Again, I illustrated this in the example: the suit commissioned was unique and necessary because he has very specific requirements on the fitting and details of the suit. But yet at the same time, the same amount could have been put to more diverse use- it is a matter of opinion then, but my inclination is toward utility.

"Different people value different brand attributes. A large number of SFers value provenance, rarity, non-fashion styling, and artisan handwork. If you place a sufficiently high value on those attributes, then the value equation that EG/A&S presents may make sense; but the value equation that D&G presents does not. That does not make the price D&G charge appalling; and neither are the prices charged by EG/A&S appalling simply because you do not place a very high value on the attributes those brands stand for. "

You make a valid point about value; at the moment, to me, £2300+ for a bespoke suit would be better spent on amassing a breathtaking collection from ebay, charity shops, and vintage fairs, but if the day comes when bespoking suit from Savile Row is worth the time I would spend to scrounge the thrifty way, my values will change.

"The one thing I will say though, is that frequent deep-discounts is a good indicator of a manufacturer having got their value proposition wrong."

Or how much their mark-up is and still turn a profit.

"This philosopher strikes me more as that particular breed of human, so eloquently described by whnay as a small timer."

While an unecessary ad hominem attack, I would like to point out that being a big-timer or small-timer should make no difference to your style.

"My first taste of luxury was when I passed the Lobb store in Jermyn street, London. I had yet to discover Style Forum, nor had I heard of John Lobb. The leather belts in the window were the most beautiful I'd ever seen.

Quality simply speaks for itself."

What you encountered was beautiful design; I had a similar experience walking past the window display of Hackett Jermyn Street, but no one can really claim Hackett produces quality clothing.

"If you are "appalled" at how much some people are paying for certain items, well too damned bad. No one is telling you to do the same."

Part of my horror is that despite spending at those levels, there seems to be a surfeit of style on this forum. If we could spend less but look better, wouldn't that be wonderful?

Requoted again for length.

- B

Originally Posted by voxsartoria

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Requoted again for length.

- B

You and FNB should have a comedy duel.

Originally Posted by DocHolliday

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Really, we can't win. Either we're cheap, tasteless iGents grubbing around for the dregs of the sale basket or we're spendthrift wastrels drunk on our own gluttony.


Well Dressed, cheap, tasteless, spendthrift igents.