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

lovepop September 13 2006, 23:07:25 UTC

i almost think that the merging of the high end fashion designers and down market retailers is perfect for each other. i think they both represent the worst of the "fashion"...its about excess and money and business. on one hand you have extremely expensive items, whether for quality or name or brand or trend, that most regular joes can't afford. and i don't know if you can always argue that paying more for these things ensures better quality and more "lastibility". on the other side you have the retailers that market and sell us all that we don't need. and using high end designers is just another way of getting them to sell to us things and having us buy things we don't need. i wouldn't trust walmart or kmart to not employ sweatshops as much as i wouldn't trust the bigger designers, DKNY, Louis Vuitton (LVMH) to not do the same as well ( ... )

lovepop September 13 2006, 23:08:56 UTC

peace dude!!! i'm raging against the machine!!

purldrop September 13 2006, 23:32:15 UTC

awesome dude!!!
(ps- why do i never find you on IM, miss webcam?)

complicated... erin_lindsay September 14 2006, 00:42:43 UTC

i just recently read about Abaeté for Payless and was just as shocked. i also believe Behnaz Sarafpour is doing a Target line? huh? i'm not that into her designs anyways..but that's besides the point ( ... )

Re: complicated... purldrop September 14 2006, 02:35:21 UTC

amen.
funny how shopping at thrift stores can actually give you a lesson in how to spot quality materials and workmanship. if you have a good eye, you can find stuff that is over 50 years old and will hold up for at least another 20! i know that a wool suit made in the 40's is far superior to even a high-end suit made today. and certainly none of this crappy H&M stuff is gonna make it to 2056!

floridfauna September 14 2006, 15:19:51 UTC

when i first heard about the idea of the big designers teaming up with target, i was totally psyched, thinking (foolishly) that for once there would be some quality stuff offered to more, for less. but so far all of the items i've perused have not only been less-than-interesting design-wise, they've been of the same crappy craftsmanship as the rest of the target ilk. it definitely smacks of cashing-in (on the part of the desingners and the big companies) on the average status-obsessive's need for more...bling. tho bling it does not ( ... )

purldrop September 14 2006, 16:51:40 UTC

i don't know! i hope that my shop does this a bit, but who am i kidding? i own a cute "boutique" in Brooklyn, NYC! that's not very subversive or political. but i still get my fair share of people wandering out loud why things are so expensive (my shop is way less expensive than your average NYC boutique, by the way) when they direct this question at me, i tell them exactly why... and they usually take a different tone and seem interested. but usually they're just being rude and talking to a friend. just yesterday, 2 women were looking at my crochet earrings and asking about them, price, material, etc...and when i asked if they'd like me to take them out of the case, one girl said, "no, i think i can make those" so, yeah, a little bit off topic...but still- consumer awareness of how things are made/by whom is really, really low. i don't necessarily blame consumers directly, but it seems like that's where change is gonna have to come from. it's encouraging to find that there is a growing consumer demand for eco-fabrics and sweatshop ( ... )

meli_mello September 15 2006, 03:12:16 UTC

I know this has already been said but it is shocking how our culture has become so consumer-driven and disposable. It isn't just clothing, furniture and other material objects that people think of as disposable anymore - it's their relationships and their lives (meaning that they don't care what they eat and don't take care of themselves). Few people seem to want quality over quantity anymore and that is why (my opinion) the big name designers want to get into the cheaper markets - so they can mass produce more things and reach more of an audience with their cheap goods that will eventually be disposed of and then re-purchased. I don't follow fashion as much as I used to - at least, not modern fashion - because I can't keep up and I don't want to. Also, I wouldn't want to support some of the big name brand designers (Louis Vitton) because their products don't seem to be of much higher quality than the stuff you would get at, say, The Gap and I don't want to be identified by a label on an ugly, over-priced brown leather purse. I don't ( ... )