Comments | purldrop: question for those of you interested in fashion:

purldrop

question for those of you interested in fashion:

Sep 13, 2006 00:30

how do you feel about all of these big-named designers doing lines for major discount chain stores? i just read today's daily candy about Abaeté doing a line for Payless Shoes. isn't it still crap produced in crappy conditions in some crappy sweatshop??? isn't that one of the reasons we like fancy designers?...because designer items are produced by ( Read more... )

Comments 33

olamina September 13 2006, 17:01:22 UTC

I hadn't thought of it this way before. Thanks for making me think more, though I still like to believe that we truly can have a good design for all.

uberdionysus September 13 2006, 21:26:22 UTC

Ditto. But I never think about fashion, or buying clothes, so I'm probably not really in this conversation.

olamina September 13 2006, 21:34:09 UTC

Well it's not just clothes. Target has done furniture and other products for the home with Phillipe Starck and Michael Graves and many other non-clothing/fashion designers.

violet244 September 13 2006, 17:29:33 UTC

i saw that article on Daily Candy today, and it i thought the same thing. Isn't the whole point of you being a known designer or a good designer is to produce quality materials? No matter how expensive they may be?
People really do need to stop bying crap.
I recently bought a bag which is way out of my usual price range, but whenever i look at it i feel like the money was worth it, cause you can see it is made out of good quality.

pintuck September 13 2006, 17:33:53 UTC

people want things cheaply...they've been trained by consumer culture and big business (think wal-mart, etc...i call it the "wal-mart mentality") to expect cheap. and to achive that cheapness, something has to be compromised along the way: materials, people, construction, design. there is planned obsolescence in most consumer products today. make it cheap, with cheap materials, on the backs of low-paid workers...it breaks, and we have to buy another one. for a lot of people, it's really a matter of economics...they don't have a lot of money and want to get more for their dollar, even if it's just quantity and not quality ( ... )

labrujah September 13 2006, 17:54:52 UTC

I think of it as disposable clothing, disposable goods. We love to shop, we shop as stress relief and as recreation and as a social outing -- and that's why H&M and forever 21 and urban outfitters make so much money. Also outside of NY, people have so many fewer shopping options. We are lucky to have access to all the great designers and shops here -- we have more of a choice.

I have had to train myself to become a browser, so I can see what's out there, absorb ideas and trends, but not feel like it's a waste of time or a failure if I don't buy anything.

pintuck September 13 2006, 19:12:24 UTC

i just want to point out that people in smaller cities do have a choice in this day and age: the internet. they may not always have brick & mortar shopping options, but they are afforded far more choices due to the web for shopping and fashion and design, more than at any other time in history. they don't have to just depend on what's around them anymore.

labrujah September 13 2006, 19:21:14 UTC

true! especially Ebay.

I am always a little hesitant to buy something I can't try on - but I guess all the catalog and internet shoppers out there prove I'm in a minority.

I also feel like big sites like bluefly are hard to navigate, esp. if you aren't already really into fashion/don't know what designers you like. More curated, boutique-like sites like girlshop make it easier. I guess I also think that unless you are really interested, the general knowledge of fashion, design and even what shopping sites are out there doesn't permeate very far outside of big cities. Lucky mag is probably changing this faster than most fashion mags.

the bigger picture olamina September 13 2006, 21:40:33 UTC

...but what about quality and standards in our lives? are we not all entitled to well made, well thought-out shoes, pants, shirts? don't we all deserve products made with love and pride? yes, we do! food is disposable (more so than clothes even) but don't we all appreciate a freshly made tasty meal over some converyer belt McDonalds food? Yes! We all do. I understand that not every plain white-t need be hand stitched by grandma, but it would be nice to know they were all crafted by people making enough money to feed themselves and their kids enough healthy and good food that evening.

Thread 6

lulu September 13 2006, 21:16:18 UTC

i definitely think that this is an interesting topic...to me, in the retail market today, a lot of shoppers look for that exclusivity or to feel that theyve purchased something 'handcrafted' or in some way special as a way to escape from the homogenization of culture at large...i think those large retail chains that do things like that are definitely trying to appeal on that level as well as the 'here have a piece of this status brand' level....it interests me to see those things although i usually wouldnt purchase them myself...i like feeling that what im carrying or wearing is something of quality and you can definitely feel the difference....yeah a cool designer may have created it, but if the hand of the fabric sucks etc etc, i probably wouldnt be interested...i usually buy to have something for the long run and wear the shit out of it, so if i know its going to shrink/face/get screwed up in general after a few wears why do it ( ... )