Chapter 61: Juggling A Fashion Juggernaut
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This chapter discusses high end brands and how they require two very different types of buyers in order to support their brand. These two buyers are more wealthy buyers that are loyal and consistently buy their brand and then also people who don’t and only buy when the product is heavily discounted. But this in an incredibly delicate balance that brands have to walk and figure out how much to discount what and how often. Because leaning too far is one direction could be detrimental to their sales. This really centers around the idea of exclusivity. Luxury brands depend and thrive off of exclusivity and this is really interesting to me. This branch of the fashion industry is extremely classist and elitist. These brands don’t want “certain” people to wear their products. I’ve always had mixed feelings about fake and knock off designer goods because the concept is really interesting to me. I feel very strongly that designers always deserve credit and respect for their creative work. Since it’s their life’s work and all that effort goes into designing, for someone to just completely rip it off is so disrespectful. I feel really strongly about this when it comes to brands like Zara and Urban Outfitters making virtually copies of other garments and selling them for less, or exploiting smaller designers that don’t have a backing or lawyers to protect them. But at the same time luxury and exclusive goods thrive on simply excluding people which is really cruel so it’s kind of funny then when the people who can’t normally get those types of products are able to recreate a look or product. It is sort of a “In your face!” to the bigger brands that are trying to desperately to keep them out.
