This is especially true with luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Prada. People are either trying to impress others with fakes, or they’ve actually paid full price to become walking billboards.
Similar thing with iPhone cases that have a cutout for the Apple logo. That’s just hilarious.
With those luxury brands the bigger the logo the cheaper it is. The really expensive stuff doesn’t have a logo or is small and subtle.
Just look at the stuff Hermes makes. Almost nothing has a logo and if it has it just a subtle “H” They are one of the few luxury brands that hasn’t followed the luxury street wear fad and are growing in sales. While the more mainstream luxury brands like Gucci and LV are loosing customers since it is being associated with trashy people, because of their focus on mainstream “luxury” street wear. Like in my country street thugs wear Gucci and LV.
Generally, I agree with this. Not quite w/ regards to Nike and some other brands, (most of Nike’s competitors, Apple) , since they put the logo on everything as part of their design asthetic. Whether you like that or not is personal choice, of course. Personally, I miss the old colorful Apple logo.
With luxury brands, yeah it’s a blatant cash grab extracting money from poorer people by selling them the mirage of owning something luxurious. The stuff you buy at the mall isn’t sold at their Rodeo Drive location! That said, some luxury brands do qualify for “buy it for life” status, though having the kind of quality isn’t exclusive to luxury brands (see also: Zippo lighters, and many many other solid, reasonably priced brands).
Yeah I think if you’re going to be advertising their brand the product should be free or they should even be paying you to wear it out in public.
I find the same to be true when people buy cars with illuminated insignia in the grill. Mercedes Benz, Volkswagen, for example.
I’d snip the wires immediately if my car had one like that.
Though, interestingly on my previous car I tried a front mask without the logo on it and it looked weird. Like something was missing and I didn’t like that. I then ended up just blacking out the logo like I did with my current one and I think it looks better that way. From the tailgate I did remove it along with other markings and I much prefer the clean look.
I would challenge you to find a modern automobile manufacturer who doesn’t make their logo huge and illuminated. Also, you can no longer remove them, as they’re often now build into the body-work or grille .
I’ve never seen an illuminated logo from manufacturers other than those I’ve listed. Large, sure. Though some like Kia or Hyundai I haven’t seen get huge. Honda, maybe?
there’s a brand I like that sells fast fashion (sue me) with 0 branding on any of their clothing items
I have like a dozen sweaters from them, they aren’t as cheap as they used to be but nothing is now
What a Unique and interesting thought, you are so much better than those people.
Now we need an Ad blocker.
Maybe we already do and aren’t aware of it?
Edit: /s if it wasn’t obvious.
They are walking billboards.
This is happening with non-luxury brands too. I was looking for a simple sports t-shirt lately and it’s actually really hard to find one without a huge brand logo at the front. Do people actually like this?
I’ve made an exception once or twice for a logo that actually looks good. I think that is, considering how many pieces of clothing I’ve seen and not chosen, something like a one-in-a-million chance.
Some do like it, but I’m with you; I skip the logo’d clothing.
The funny thing is that the rich people know that those are 2nd class luxury. The real luxury clothes do not have big logos, they are made with expensive materials like silk, cashmere and other expensive hand crafted fabrics that most people can only afford exceptionally. Most Luxury brand sold their soul for profits by creating those 2nd class that wanna-look rich people can afford, but they still sell their actually valuable products to actually rich clients, without big logos.
P.S.: those 2nd class luxury are made in the same Asian sweatshops as the fast fashion like H&M, while real luxury are made by highly skilled workers, usually in Western countries.
The only other type of clothing with clear, visible branding I own aside from band shirts is tech vendor shirts from conferences. But those I get for free, so I didn’t exactly pay to become their billboard.
“Free”
The amount of money that those conferences cost my job and the amount of time I spend blocking cold calls from vendors that gave me shwag…
This reminds me of “Back to the Future”, where Lorraine calls Marty “Calvin Klein”, after she had seen his underwear…
I have a hoodie that has “Moshed Potatoes” on it and you should get it too.
Same sentiment here - but with the exception of band t-shirts and other merchandise - where in most cases you do want to show your support for the artist.
I definitely consider a band shirt an ad as well, but wearing one feels like a conscious decision to show your preference for that band and perhaps attract like-minded people. With clothing brands, however, it’s more about signaling wealth and status rather than admiration for the brand itself. You’re wearing an ad and being oblivious to it.
It’s the exact same thing, you just have different goals and values from the other group of people
A sports piece of clothing or equipment is still functional with or without the flashy branding; a piece of merch however is not (especially if it’s just decorative - like a pin, a sew-on patch or something like that).
A band is not the same as a luxury fashion brand.
One is exploited by massive corporations, gets a single digit percentage of the profits they generate, gets known by word of mouth (or T-shirt) among fans, and creates a piece of culture.
The other is a (usually massive) corporation, exploits low paid workers, is a status symbol for the rich and the people who want to appear as rich, and sometimes they make an item that could technically be considered a piece of culture.
Advertising for and/or showing your support for them are very different things that imply different things, for different reasons.
Wearing band merch implies support for their musical stylings, a connection with the creative output of the band, and possibly their world view.
Wearing a logo-festooned piece of couture clothing implies wealth and status, and (often) complicity with sweat shops.
While the two previous paragraphs seem to be similar, because of the first two paragraphs, they are quite different.
The concept is the same. You’re advertising your favourite band, they’re advertising their need for approval.
I don’t know how the brands exploitation of their workers is in any way relevant to this.
