FashBlog.com

Do you have a problem with wearing anything that has the designer’s name plastered on it, making you into a walking-yet unpaid advertisement? As you can probably guess, I do. Maybe if a person has no real sense of self, they want to identify with a name designer in order to feel some kind of prestige, or perhaps if a person is a young adult, they want to flaunt an expensive designer item. However, some people simply don’t mind wearing such apparel and don’t connect it in the least to any kind of emotional need. But I still wonder how such stuff gets bought.

Identifying logos-like the Nike swoosh-aren’t that bad, but blatant initials on garments and purses (like those of Donna Karan, Michael Kors, Etienne Aigner, Louis Vuitton and Gucci), and full company names on sports merchandise, is too discomforting for me. Back in January, I asked you all if you were designer followers, and today’s piece is expanding that question to include wearing a name on your chest, across your behind, or scattered over any accessory.

The next question to ask yourself is why have you allowed yourself to market someone’s product? Not only are you doing it for free, you’re actually paying for the privilege. That concept is ingenious, isn’t it? It makes those millionaires even richer. Taking that query even farther, would you wear an expensive designer item if no one was to know the designer-either due to their being relatively new, the label well hidden, or the style unrecognizable? If you’re like most people, you probably admit that most of the fun of wearing a famous person’s creations is having everyone know that you’re successful enough to have acquired it. Names, in every sense, are intricately woven with ego.

Names are also tricky when it comes to merchandise in general. Some companies purchase other companies and have lower-priced lines, but the same high level of quality. Other companies have distinctly lower-quality and lower-priced items, but rely on consumer’s brand identification with their high-end products…in other words, you really can’t trust the name in all instances. But there are many lines of apparel that are produced by “no name chumps” that are still recognized within their own industry as offering quality, and are able to offer reasonable merchandise due to distancing themselves from high-end advertising. In this case, the name is known by those who are really “in the know.”

On the other hand, names can make our search for products easier, if we happen to find a line that seems to fit us perfectly, or specialize in a manner we require. Surprisingly, certain companies don’t even appreciate this opportunity, and consequently make life more difficult than it needs to be. An example of this could be found in technology, like cell phones or computer components, as well as in some styles of lingerie. Often, such items are labeled with no semblance of rhyme or reason, carrying product numbers that are at least 3 digits long, and never in chronological order. The numbers are more like 8734, followed by 492, followed by 1100i; it’s enough to make one go crazy after awhile. Who the heck can remember such identification?

Is there anyone out there who can explain why companies don’t give their items names? Many shoe and brasserie makers do, but most refer to generic labels, such as “Bermuda Shorts” or “Pullover”, which can cover a realm of variance. Yet it seems that designers and manufactures apparently don’t want us to remember product names; they want us to remember their names. This seems like putting the cart before the horse, because if we can’t find a certain style in the Reebok section, we’ll go to another vendor. However, if we know we want the “Reebok Princess”, we can order online and it’s win/win for everyone. (Notice that it’s much easier to remember names instead of model numbers.)

The car manufacturers have known for years that people can relate much more to a product with a name than a number. (They’ll also remember those products better, as I just did with the Princess.) Let’s get names back where they belong-on the tags instead of our bodies.