Free style · 2002-03-01
Brands are bad, according to the latest liberal wisdom. The labels and logos that identify consumer goods are in fact at the core of a global malaise of capitalism. They are responsible for creating purposeless demand for products and for keeping the developing world in a perpetual state of subjugation to the whims of the rich western consumer.
It’s rubbish. Brands are precisely what give that consumer a handle on the power of otherwise unaccountable supranational corporations. Look at Nike and Shell and others, forced to clean up their acts in various ways by the threat of unsavoury taints on their image. It is facile to claim that brands are somehow intrinsically ‘bad’.
Why not be honest: the real issue is the harmless folly of people believing they are buying into a lifestyle. Hence, going to a Starbucks makes you a dashing urban type, particularly if you can bark that you want a ‘latte grande and double choc muffin’ without succumbing to at least a momentary sense of foolishness. Marlboro smokers still look inanely to a bestubbled cowboy as their role-model in life – and hey, with Marlboro Lights you can let your friends know you’re trying to give up, which everyone knows is the most fashionable smoking status these days. Meanwhile, a new Beetle or Mini demonstrates the owner’s grasp of the roots of modern European popular culture. Even holiday destinations have become a form of brand posturing. A trip to Cuba is for post-Marxist revolutionaries, keen to be seen to spurn the usual holiday cliches and go to the one place where, ironically, there’s no McDonalds and the only latte grande you’ll be able to get is the real thing.
Brands make people into sheep. Perhaps this is natural: everyone wants to fit in with their peers and to be stylish, and brands offer a low-risk, off-the-peg solution. With clothes, if not with cars and holidays, this means that a lot of people end up looking very unstylish indeed. Giorgio sweatshirts spring to mind, and backpacks emblazoned with outsize Quiksilver logos in the style of a Toyota pick-up truck’s tailgate. I hardly need to mention sportswear.
The fact is that neither brands nor labels have anything to do with style. To illustrate, ask which of these is stylish: Seiko watch in gold finish with eight dials? Bog-standard blue jeans with Gucci tab? Oakley shades? YSL Oxford shirt? I would suggest none of them. But they’ll all set you back a lot of money anyway. There is no reason cheap things should be less stylish than expensive things: manufacturing is not voodoo and qualified designers do not get better the more you pay them. No-one has yet succeeded in patenting the rules of aesthetics.
The so-called anti-capitalists (what are these people for?) are wrong about brands. You may choose to pay for brands for any number of reasons, good and bad. But when, in the process, you become a mass-produced clone of your fellow consumer, that is no-one’s loss but your own.
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c’est vraiment très interessant
— jerome 2006-12-07 20:18 #