Tagged: ralph lauren

Strike up the Brand

If the price of a Ralph Lauren shirt falls at Littlewoods but it doesn’t have a Polo player on it, does anybody make a sound?’ – Me. Just now.

Beats by Dr Dre de-branded Selfridges
De-branded Beats by Dr Dre headphones, courtesy of Selfridges

For as long as I can remember, I’ve worn branded clothing. A quick glimpse around my house makes it pretty clear why – from my Dad’s shirt wardrobe (yes, he has a wardrobe just for shirts…) containing 41 Ralph Lauren shirts and counting, to my Mum’s…well, I struggle to think of anything my mother owns that ISN’T covered in some Cath Kidston print or other, it’s pretty clear how I ended up like this. But why…?

A lot of trend whores claim they buy labels because the products are better made. Well, that may be the case sometimes, but I’m pretty sure that a few years ago ALL of us spent a night out listening to a friend complaining about the sleeves of his heather grey All Saints jumper fraying even though he’d only worn it once. Once upon a time I worked in a department store, and they had a whole rail devoted to those faulty jumpers. Equally, there are people who have gone to great lengths to figure out which high end products have high street equivalents that are made in the same factory. The rumour that if you go to ‘the right market’ in China you’ll find knockoffs that are actually better made than genuine products has been kicking around for years.

You might claim that people cling to brands and products because they define their identity. But, if that really is the case, why are such a high percentage of teenagers still fascinated by Abercrombie & Fitch even though you can’t walk down Regent Street for more than 30 seconds without seeing an overweight Persian man wearing one of their polo shirts? And how can Dr Martens simultaneously be the calling card of both crusty punks and pallid bloggers? Even if the latter DO claim to love The Clash…who, let’s be honest, weren’t all that great, and are regarded in many circles as a pre-Cowell manufactured boy band.

Ragged Priest biker jacket pvc
Ragged Priest? Topshop? Your guess is as good as mine! (It’s RP.)

Plenty of writing has been done on branding (like Naomi Klein’s No Logo), but unless you’re an academic you probably don’t have time to read it. Also worth observing that Klein walks a really dangerous line of kinda being a fox but also sometimes looking a bit like my mother. My own stance on the whole thing is that brands permeate modern culture to such a degree that it’s impossible to avoid them or even define them for more than five minutes – Nike is trying to look like Timberland, Reebok is trying to look like Nike, Vans are trying to look like Rockport, and it’s hard to know what anything ‘stands for’ anymore. Topshop, one of the biggest retailers on the planet, has a section devoted to a brand that used to spend its days splattering charity shop denim with bleach but whose stuff is now starting to look more and more like…Topshop’s.

When Selfridges got in touch to tell me about their ‘Quiet Shop’, I was definitely interested. A thousand design students have removed the words from a can of Coca Cola and smugly been like ‘ahh, I bet you still know what this can is! That’s the power of branding!!!’, but (aside from a brief flirtation with the idea of ‘stealth wealth‘ <– Warning: Daily Mail link! If you’re not down with that, just listen to Gucci Gucci by Kreayshawn as the message is pretty much the same) I can’t think of any fashion brands that have ever gone as far as to remove their branding. In fact, in most cases the opposite is true – the Abercrombie moose and Ralph Lauren’s polo horse seem to have been getting bigger and bigger in the past few years, and I’m expecting them to have an apocalyptic battle a la Megashark vs Giant Octopus before long.

But it’s exactly what a number of brands, including Levi’s, Clinique and Heinz are doing for Selfridges’ No Noise campaign. Selfridges aims to encourage customers “to proactively seek out moments of peace and tranquility in a world that bombards us with information and stimulation.” I certainly like the idea of removing the focus from garish packaging and focusing on a product’s quality and function – I admit that I’ve previously found Beats a bit garish and showy, but this toned down cream edition is very sleek. It also sounds a lot better than my previous setup…which, admittedly, alternated between standard iPod earphones and a set of Sennheisers that only played through one ear. But still.

I expect that the campaign will actually be pretty divisive – I wonder what extent the cachet that brands have stems from their logo and, indeed, their very name. Will people be willing to part with their money for something that doesn’t have that? Just as with another brand involved, I think this is one you’ll either love or hate…

Marmite de-branded Selfridges No Noise

Spotlight on: GANT

Everyone has that brand. You know the one I mean – the one that makes you want to buy everything in the whole store despite the fact it’s out of your price range. The one you can never find in TK Maxx. The one that leaves you counting down the days until they have a sale. The one that, when you open your bank statement, has you cutting up your credit card and sobbing gently while the theme song from Requiem for a Dream plays in the background. For me, Gant is that brand.

Subtle floral detailing

To say that my fashion sense is eclectic is something of an understatement (my wardrobe contains everything from bandanas and Black Dahlia Murder t-shirts to deck shoes and ripped skinny jeans), but preppy brands like Ralph Lauren, Gant and Abercrombie & Fitch have had a constant presence for longer than I can remember.

The fashion world is ridden with simulations and simulacra – Ralph Lauren stoically continues to present images of polo, country clubs and the upper classes despite gathering near exponential popularity with young African Americans looking to emulate their hip hop mogul idols. Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch seem to have all but ditched the idea of being a brand for frat boys and surfers and have been subsumed by their own branding. Is it just me or are those moose and seagull logos getting bigger by the minute…?

So what of Gant? Despite being started by a Ukranian immigrant and launched internationally by a Swedish company, Gant retains a distinct sense of American-ness. No doubt, this is something they work hard to cultivate – one need only look at the interior of their flagship stores to realise this.

So, here’s the kicker. I don’t consider myself a big blogger. I don’t even consider myself an established blogger. So imagine my surprise when Halpern PR contacted me on behalf of Gant, already aware that I’ve previously written about them.

Thanks, Gant!

As well as sending me a present (which I love, obviously…now looking for an excuse to wear a tie), they told me about the Yale Shirt Initiative. If you went down to the store last weekend (RETROSPECTIVE BLOGGING KLAXON), you could have your initials monogrammed on a shirt in different fonts, colours and places. All for free. Which is nice. And it was all done right in the shop window -

I was already hugely impressed by this move – the fact that a mega brand like Gant approached someone like me says a lot about how they do things. When I ambled down to the store unannounced, I was even more impressed – the staff told me all about the Yale Shirt Initiative, despite the fact that I (probably) looked like a bit of a ragamuffin, and they even laughed at my terrible jokes. Which, as anyone who’s met me before knows, is the key to my heart.

In the early days, Gant targeted the most prestigious stores they could find. If the store didn’t accept them, they waited until they were reconsidered (this usually only took as long as it did for word of their high quality products to spread). Although it would be easy to equate this with elitism, it’s clear that this simply isn’t the case – one thing that has remained constant from then until now is the brand’s uncompromising vision. They’re aspirational, value perfectionism and clearly want to be the best. As far as I can see, that’s why they are.

Why vintage is the new ‘new’.

Doc Martens, courtesy of a too.

I recently tweeted that the most stylish kids of our generation are dressing like their parents used to. Although I faced a little bit of backlash (but when have I ever said anything that hasn’t resulted in a bit of backlash…?), a lot of people actually agreed with me. What I wasn’t able to compress into a couple of tweets is my internal debate about whether or not vintage shopping is getting easier.

My argument hinged around the fact that a ton of brands my parents used to like are now hugely popular with bloggers and other fashion conscious young people – my dad wore Doc Martens as a kid (c.f. my beautiful new ones at the top of this post), and has worn Gant and Ralph Lauren (both two of my ‘go to’ brands) shirts for years. My mum spent most of the ’90s in Liberty print and maxi-dresses, both now making a huge comeback. So, in theory, all kids have to do to look great these days is raid their parents’ wardrobes…right?

Not quite. Consider the difference between the following two statements – ‘You look so ’80s!’ and ‘Your clothes look like they’re thirty years old.’ It’s pretty obvious which one sounds more favourable.  When I wear one of my dad’s favourite shirts I invariably look like…well, someone wearing their dad’s old shirt. However, on finding similar shirts in charity shops and the like, it quickly becomes apparent that items have often been donated because the wearer found it at the back of their wardrobe and realised they never wear it.

It used to be that shopping for vintage clothes was incredibly difficult, because finding clothes in good condition was tough to do. Brands like Levi’s, Gant and Abercrombie have totally changed this. By selling clothes that have already been weathered to look vintage, including everything from pre-ripped locker loops (pictured below) to sand washed and torn denim, secondhand shopping has the chance to truly hit the bigs again.

Ripped locker loops traditionally indicated that the wearer had a significant other.

I had a quick word with the gents from a too, a specialist menswear retailer in Birmingham, about how menswear has changed in the last 15 years. This is what they told me – “Don’t get too comfortable! It is amazing just how much men’s fashion and the requirements of customers has changed over the years, something that we have had to constantly be aware of.” They also intimated that most customers are now “looking for something that is a little bit special…they look for great details, fit and materials which set clothes a level up from the regular high-street offerings.”

The guys also alluded to a point I made in a previous blog, namely that popular culture (everything from television shows to the internet) now has a huge impact of people, whether they’re aware of it or not. “The rise of style-based blogs has also meant that people come in looking for a certain look, rather than wanting to get kitted with a particular brand, which is reflected in the brands that we now stock.”

I was recently checking out some advertising from the 1950s and came across this old advert for Gant -

The advert struck me because it reminded me so much of the Mad Men look, which demonstrated another reason that vintage is so massive right now – as well as people wanting their clothes to have character and ‘stories’ to them (whether those stories truly belong to the garment’s owner or not is another story…), current trends are very much based around picking and choosing stylistic devices from the last hundred years and mixing them together in a very postmodern way. And it goes without saying that a shirt made in the ’50s will always look more legit than a shirt that’s been made to look like it was made in the ’50s.

So why are some brands already repro’ing stuff that looks just like what my parents used to wear? Well, there are two reasons. Firstly, they’re putting an incredibly subtle (one far too subtle to explain here…) spin on things that make them similar enough to invoke nostalgia but different enough to make it look fresh and not like one of Pops’ beaten up old shirts. Secondly, there are still men (and women, too) who are resilient to the idea of putting together a collection of vintage pieces because…well, to be frank, vintage shopping can take a lot of work. It’s probably no coincidence that two of a too’s best selling collections are Gitman Vintage and Gant Rugger.

But if you have a little time, there’s not much you’ll find in stores that you won’t find in a vintage store.