“How many times must I sell myself
Before my pieces are gone?
I’m one of a kind! I’m designer!
Never again will I repeat myself
Enough is never enough
Never again will I repeat myself” -Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age) “I’m Designer” 2007
Let’s set the scene: You walk into some godforsaken school function and you see an ocean of adolescents dressed in thousands of dollars worth of the latest designer releases, and you have yours on too. You don’t think anything of it, after all why should you? It’s what’s cool, it’s what’s popular, it’s what’s in. But have you ever wondered, maybe it’s not that special? Maybe it’s something of a scam?
That maybe while you swear you’re riding the high crest of some enduring wave of pithy, meaningful, materialism, maybe you’re just being raked over the coals by businessmen with a good marketing schtick; boardroom hucksters who put on a good show? I’ll cut the condescension, I think anyone who buys trendy or luxury clothing is a fool who’s being taken advantage of.
Maybe I am just a cynic who can’t play nice, but I want you to ask yourself: What makes your clothes so special? Why are you willing to pay that much money for clothes?
“Luxury fashion” is a vague word, spread eagle to interpretation based on class, bias, and philosophy, but for all our sakes I’ll be more specific: Student’s trendy, luxury clothing at Calabasas High. To which the main offenders are: Spider, Essentials: Fear of God, and Lululemon, followed by Billionaire Boys Club, Chrome Hearts, WhiteFox, Marc Jacobs, Sprayground, Supreme, and all the old guard like Gucci, Balenciaga, Ralph Lauren, Dior, Channel, and every other high-end brand.
Looking at retail prices, it would be false and downright insensitive to act as if all of the brands that I just put on death row are created equal. They aren’t. Essentials hoodies average between $100 and $160. Lululemon’s high-waisted yoga pants are about $100 per pair. A basic Spider tracksuit lands in the $300-350 range, same goes for most that comes out of Billionaire Boys Club and Ice Cream. Once Balenciaga, Supreme, Gucci, Chrome Hearts, and the rest get involved it becomes difficult to determine a best-selling item for which to base an average. Still, it, typically lands somewhere in the range between $1,000 and $10,000. If you don’t believe me, and you shouldn’t take anybody’s word on good faith, you can click on any of the brand names above, go to their websites and find it for yourself.
Luxury fashion, like anything on the higher end of the life, is a market that trades in exclusivity. It’s only worth as much as the buyer decides. This is why marketing teams are put to work to convince you that you need what they are selling and that without it, you are inadequate.
And it works.
Through product drops, social media, minimalist websites, celebrity endorsements, limited number items, and high price tags, a veil of mass-meaning is bestowed upon something that’s undeniably insignificant. But still it’s bought and still it’s revered, because somebody saw someone else wearing something and they decided that they should too, so that then they would feel like they’re a part of something, that they’re worthy of it, that they’re accepted and respected and that they are on the inside of something exclusive. The irony being that it’s never enough.
There is always something better, newer, more expensive. So you buy the next hoodie, the next pair of shoes, the next bag, always playing catch up, trying to reach the all important prestige; the feeling of being at the top, of being unattainable. Like any trend, it culls its audience and spreads like a disease. The equation is simple: Envy plus group thought plus a fool and his money equals bubonic marketing at its best.
I’m sure that there are some of you shaking your heads that I’m an overdramatic screaming at the clouds, and again this is a possibility, but it’s not about the fashion.
I don’t really care about clothes. I don’t care what you want to spend your-or your parents-money on, let alone if it’s clothes that I personally think are glitzy and ugly. I don’t like them, you do. A lot of people do. That’s great, life goes on. But that’s not the point. The point is, that trend-based, luxury clothes (especially with impressionable kids who’ve never known anything different, as is the case with some students at CHS) is a sociological symptom of something much bigger and much uglier and I think it’s depressing.
I thinks it depressing the way it sells out individual thought and expression, the way it exploits insecurity while also adding to the general malaise of adolescent inadequacy, the way it creates a semi-uniform for the upper classes and shallow way to spot somebody lower on the totem pole, the way it encourages going with the grain without questioning why, the way it promotes pretentiousness, envy, pride, and materialism, and I find it depressing the way that all of those ideals lay the groundwork for great success in the corporate world or as a cop, a lawyer or a trophy wife.
I don’t blame fashion for spoiling kids, but I think the yuppie ideals and social value of luxury clothes are a gear in the ever-turning machine that builds little, spoiled brats that will grow up into big, spoiled brats who will be the pallbearers of a shallow, self-involved, overindulgent, conforming, greedy, materialism in American culture that will continue to corrupt and rot us so extensively that we’ll be begging England to take us back.
Maybe I am just being dramatic. Or maybe, you should make up your own damn mind.
