Thursday 27 January 2011

Designing Idiots

I think I see a similarity...


If I had a pound for every Superdry coat, Jack Wills jogging bottoms or Hollister t-shirt I saw, I’d be able to afford one.

Back in the 70s, fashion seemed to revolve around looking different to everyone else, and generally looking as idiotic as possible. Clashing colours, weirdly shaped clothes and an avant-garde kind of style. In today’s world, you are looked down upon if you don’t have certain words emblazoned all across every part of your clothing. Words such as Superdry, Hollister, Jack Wills and Abercrombie seem to the main tick boxes for gaining fashion points, and social status it seems.

Superdry. If the company were selling cagoules or raincoats, the name would be slightly understandable, but in fact these clothes are the exact opposite. It’s just t-shirts, hoodies and the ubiquitous Superdry coat that everyone seems to wear. And the coat doesn’t even have a hood. By wearing one of these coats, you single yourself out as someone who needs to prove how much money they have. The two most popular hoodies colours visible in the street seem to be red and green. Superdry? More like Super Mario.

Jack Wills and Hollister have given up on trying using fancy designs on their clothes. All their items of clothing seem to be plain and have the word in massive letters all it. Women’s t-shirts tend to have the word around the chest area, which means that anyone wondering what the t-shirt says looks like a pervert. And it gets even worse, as some of the designs have just a tiny little logo, which makes the clothing look slightly stained from a distance. Why spend loads of money on a plain t-shirt with only a tiny logo on it? It’s just a plain t-shirt for god’s sake! When will you ever see this!

Abercrombie and Fitch seem to be the most omnipresent of the brands as everyone seems to carry around an Abercrombie bag. It’s basically a flimsy paper bag with a picture of a half naked man on it. Or maybe a women. But mostly male models as it does tend to be the females of the species that carry around these. This advertises the shop even more, bringing in more customers, making the prices go up in accordance with supply and demand, making it much more expensive to buy anything from there. This would normally be a disadvantage, but the blind sheep (sorry, customers) enjoy this as it makes their purchase seem even more precious as people know how expensive the stuff is.

If you really wanted to show how rich you are, you could just hire a butler to constantly follow you all day, doing errands and holding your stuff for you. Or you could just wear a t-shirt saying ‘I’m rich and you’re poor’ written above a picture of you standing in front of a mansion holding a massive diamond. But you’re probably not that rich.

I only own one designer product and it’s a Superdry t-shirt that I was given as a present. The people giving it to me had obviously spent a fair amount of money on it, despite the fact that it’s just some fibres sewn together. I only really wear it in the winter so that a hoodie (not Superdry) or jacket (also not Superdry) can cover it up, thereby well and truly, sticking it to the man.

1 comment:

And the verdict is...