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Dad • 08/01/03 • 8:17 AM:

Hey! Mom buys those name brands for me. And what choice do I have? When I was growing up, you bought clothes with labels on the inside. Of course, status and fashion were always there, and people knew that Cadillacs were more expensive and luxurious than Chevys, but marketers hadn’t yet discovered that society would ultimately tollerate “in your face” branding on everything.

There’s probably a book or two out there on the history of modern branding, but certainly Jordach (sp?) jeans was a breakthrough. I mean, Wrangler had that leather piece on the back of their jeans (or was it somebody else?), but “designer” jeans started the trend toward paying double the price just to get the name on the back. Tommy Gofigure (who I hate, but have to give credit to for taking advantage of the idiocy of consumers) took it to the extreme by putting his name and nothing else on his clothes. We’ve said it before. It’s all about vanity. (Did anyone design that shirt yet, “All is Manatee”?)

Yes, and make no mistake, vanity is a bad thing. And pride and covetousness and gluttony and vain glory and all those other capital and lower-case sins. Kathleen has said that fashion is fun, and I should back off on my tirades. She has a point. I’m not saying go out there looking slovenly and unkempt. We all like to look nice and put our best foot foward (and it’s silly not to also have a nice shoe on the other foot) but it must all be kept in perspective. Watch out for items that are more status than function. Watch out for people who are more status than function. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that “clothes make the man.”

But on the Dan’s question, can one obtain and flourish in a design job and still save one’s soul? I think the answer is yes, just as one can work for Big Oil, or accept tenure from the teacher’s union, or join a university system that applies racial quotas to its admissions policy. Design is like art, there’s good and bad and everything in between. Good art commands higher prices (assuming the buyer recognizes it) and it should. Well designed merchandise should get higher prices too, and thats OK. The problem is more centered on the consumer anyway. If people buy coffee at Starbucks, it may be a little crazy, but that’s their choice. Maybe the company that manipulates our culture into valuing that sort of price-for-status thing is partly to blame, but hey, it’s our problem for buying into that nonsense. It only gets clearly evil, in my mind, when it takes the form of a tellemarketter taking advantage of a senile old grandmother to rip off some of her life savings.

In an ideal society, fashion and status would take a back seat to function. We’d spend time and money on fancy clothes and jewelry after the children were fed and housed and given there vaccinations. We would drive cars that got us where we wanted to go and got good mileage and all had bumpers that lined up with the other cars. We’d focus on what people said and how funny and uplifting and generous they were rather than on how much excess cash they had to spend on trinkets and tattoos. But, of course, we’re human, as they say, and that means we are conscious of how we look and how we compare to others. So, as soon as somebody gets that gold nose ring, everybody wants one. Silly, but true.

Bottom line: design better things. Nothing wrong with better things, more esthetically pleasing things, cooler things. But be careful about how much importance you attach to them. Jesus had something to say about it. Consider the lilies of the field. Not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these.

Patrick • 08/01/03 • 1:43 PM:

Dad, I like how you use the words status and function together. Mostly we’d use style or status and substance together or form and function together. Isn’t it great how alliteration, poetic language influences us? In your use here, your language is correct, it conveys your message, but it lacks a small bit of zip (empty style?) that an alliteration could give it.

I have not yet made my “All Is Manatee” shirt, but it’s still in my head somewhere. The mascot would he called Hugh (Hugh Manatee). I think it’s a halfway good idea, and I’m surprised no one else has thought of it yet. That may be my only truly unique idea.

I have a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. Karina got it for me. It has a small tag. When she got it, I wanted to tell her to take it back, but I have learned that I must accept graciously whatever she buys me. I think this is the case for most women; Karina is not all that unique. So I have been thinking about why I rejected the idea of owning a shirt like that. I think it’s because I want to be unique, an individualist, and not support the system of conformity or stupidity. I think that’s an okay tack to take, but it might be better not to care either way. Or to make my judgments based not on reputation or popularity at all. That might be very difficult, of course, because most things we like had to achieve a certain popularity just in order for us to know about them. And I could go on and on, but I will maybe just mention the greatest straddler of the divide between true art and popularity ever: The Beatles.

The great thing about a topic like this is that there is no real answer. You can debate it forever and with everyone. Most people (I’ve found in teaching very fashion-conscious freshmen) believe that others are conformists, sheep, blindly following the herd. Most people think they themselves are individualists. That’s because we know our own motivations (or sometimes delude even ourselves, but still, we have reasons for the things we do). Everyone else: they’re just a mystery. A bright student of mine once wrote in an essay a phrase to disparage the quasi-individualists who simply chose to copy something non-mainstream. He called them “a herd of black sheep.” I thought that was great. And, coincidentally, cosmically, I had a conversation last night in which Tocqueville came up. I had heard the name, but knew basically nothing about the man. So I did some basic research and learned that he was a French philosopher who visited America and wrote about American democracy. One of his key things was a warning against the “tyranny of the majority.” He thought it would stifle individual expression and personal freedom. He may have meant something more political, but I think his observation has come to pass in the commercial sector.

Dad • 10/13/03 • 1:41 PM:

Hey, I was just going to comment on the ridiculous comment by the jewelry store guy and it disappeared! Aside from the last line, where he said he wasn’t trying to make money on this, it sounded like an entry that might have been constructed by a poorly-programmed computer program. None of the links worked for me when I tried them (am I now infected with the “jewelry-worm virus?).

Anyway, it also gave me an opportunity to reread Patrick’s comment on my use of “status and function.” He says he “likes” it, and then goes on to say it lacks the “zip” that alliteration could have given it. Alliteration is fine, but meaning should always trump it. Status is not style and substance is not function. Nor is form the same as style or status. I meant to use status because I was referring to the posturing that people do to bring attention to themselves, especially the vain advertising that they have a high enough income to buy expensive items. And I meant function because that is the most fundamental reason we buy clothing. Admittedly, finding alliterative ways of communicating a point may make the writing more interesting and zesty, but modifying meaning to achieve alliteration is sacrificing substance for style, form for function.

Kathleen • 10/15/03 • 6:32 AM:

All I have to say is a quote from dad:
“The people demand it.” This was in response to why Exxon drills oil. It’s also a suitable response to why people design clothes, art, and sell Starbucks coffee. They wouldn’t survive and thrive if there weren’t the demand. Simple economics.

I don’t wear names on my clothes unless they’re workout clothes, and you can’t buy them without the labels if they’re any name brand. I buy the name brands when the quality is going to make them last and I know this because I’ve already bought the ones for $4 and they sucked.

Kathleen • 10/15/03 • 6:43 AM:

Here’s more food for thought. How does this apply to music? Do you reject bands because they have gotten popular. I knew people in college who LOVED R.E.M. but when they got popular they wouldn’t like them anymore. What’s the deal with that? I can understand if their music changed and they no longer liked their sound, but this is ridiculous. They didn’t want to be associated with the huge masses who now knew and also loved them.

I think people choose their clothes, yes, because of status. Is this my problem? No. I think they should spend their money on the poor or giving it to charities, but, then again, do I? No. I just have the idealistic view that everyone should. I also think that people choose their clothes based on what they like, what they think is cool (i.e., what they think they will look cool/good in), and what is going to make them feel good. And I’d venture to guess that’s what motivates you guys too.

It’s just like music. You don’t make your own, so you listen to what fits your taste. I pick clothes that fit my taste (and my budget) because I’m not making my own.

Do people spend too much on clothes? (Am I getting redundant yet?) I’d say definitely. Do we share the same values? Perhaps not related to clothing. But, Oprah Winfrey or (insert name)will donate millions of dollars more than I, so I can’t really speak to that.

I feel like I’m always disagreeing, but I’m really not. I like what Pat had to say about how he examined why he would reject a Tommy Hilfiger shirt. I’m very happy to see that; it’s a break from the Madden traditional line of thinking, which may be just as conditioned as those people who buy clothes for status.

I have a pair of Tommy Hilfiger shorts. I needed a pair of white ones, they fit well, the TH flag was quite small (and patriotic), and they were on sale. Nearly all my shoes are Nine West. I like their styles. :)

Patrick • 10/15/03 • 4:10 PM:

I’ve found, in polling my students, that almost nobody believes that they “follow the crowd.” They all believe they’re free-thinking individuals who choose based on likes and needs and not based on popularity. OK. But that’s obviously not the way it is, otherwise (beware logical fallacy) nobody would spend a dime on advertising (especially the kind where a famous person recommends a product). I think we all should investigate our motivations somewhere in the realm of grays, not black and whites. If somebody tells you, “You’re brainwashed. You buy Tommy Hilfiger,” of course you reject that. But if somebody notes that nobody wore Tommy Hilfiger or Abercrombie and Fitch until they started massive propaganda campaigns and had almost-naked people in their ads and somehow “hooked” the “cool” kids into wearing their stuff, thereby setting off a snowball reaction to the point that those are the “in” clothes that everybody cool wants to wear (and everybody truly cool wants to burn), then you have to think that there is something going on here.

Re: supply and demand: It’s not simple economics that drives production. How in the world could they give a Nobel Prize in Economics every year if it were all simple supply and demand? What new discoveries could there be? In any case, if you simply go back a century or so, you see absolutely no demand for oil. The need was created, rather astutely, and it has made people filthy rich.

Re: REM: I think they were already way popular before you got to college. They hit it big with Green in 1988. Out of Time (1991) and Automatic for the People (1992) were also huge. Then they went downhill (musically and popularitywise) with Monster (1994) and whatever else they’ve been doing. Still, your point is valid and applicable to a number of situations. I think we all feel diametrically opposed needs to be unique and to be included. These urges come in different proportions in everyone, but they’re there. When REM got too popular, some of their old fans lost some of their uniqueness, their part-ownership of the band. Maybe they heard them too much on the radio. Maybe the music was too different. But mostly, their band was now whoring around the world (metaphorically). It may be a dumb reason to give up on a band, but it makes sense given the human psyche.

I gotta go. I could go on, but it’ll have to wait.

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