Dualité

Have you ever wondered why clothes go on sale? Sure, it’s to make room for the new stock, and when people aren’t buying at full price, retailers will slash it until they can slash no more.

But if you can get a “$500″ dress at a mark down price of $230, somewhere down the line, retailers are still making a profit from that $230 price tag, albeit a smaller one. So it goes into question, what exactly is the real price of that “$500″ dress? I came to this question as I was browsing the Forever 21 site, the US counterpart of an H&M fast fashion chain. There, hundreds of items are listed one by one, each sporting a cheap price tag. But as I further analyzed…what makes this tunic cheaper or more expensive than the one next to it? Who makes these prices and why are they so varied?

If you’ve read Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster by Dana Thomas, you’ll understand where I’m coming from. Some luxury bags are made with $250 worth of materials, yet are marked up to $1200 on the retailing floor. Of course, you’ll need a profit margin to pay for your laborers, distributors, rent, etc. But I mean, we’re talking about selling at more than four times the production costs.

Taking an example of Forever 21, they do the same, they mark it up “dirt cheap” to our eyes, at $20-$30 a garment, and can slash it as low as $14-$15 on sale. That means the piece is probably worth a mere $5 in production cost, copied and reproduced by the thousands. Wholesale is of course, always cheaper than retail pricing. You buy in bulk, you sell for more. This is really unsurprising, I suppose most consumers know this and don’t really care. This is how business has to be conducted right? To earn a profit, to earn a living.

I believe there are 3 factors that determine the price of a garment:

1. Branding
2. Emotional attachment (labour of love)
3. Production cost

Branding is an obvious factor that plays a huge role on consumer choices, why choose the Brita water filter instead of Evian’s bottled water?

Emotional attachment is connected to the designer’s love for a certain piece. Surely a more complex, hand embroidered, hand dyed dress, with a gazillion of embellishments will fetch a higher pricing. The more time a designer spends on it or loves the piece, the higher the pricing. I mean local Montreal designer Helmer made a dress out of toilet paper fabric and it was worth around $12,000, and we very well know that you can get a six pack of toilees for $7-$8 at the grocery store.

Production cost is obvious. Labourers of fabric usually get the short end of it as they have to sell the fabrics cheap for designers to buy them in larger quantities. More specialized houses will create unique more expensive fabrics, but in general, you won’t ever find the price of a garment equal to the cost of its materials.

As a consumer, the question remains the same: do you believe what you’re buying is worth it? This comes down to personal knowledge and taste. Some people are fine with Payless and others find that spending $585 for a pair of Christian Louboutin is highly justified (I am one of those people, and I own Payless shoes).

The truth is, there are clearly no right or wrong answers when it comes to determining the value of clothes (or any other product for that matter). It all depends on how influenced you are, how much money you’re willing to spend and if you feel any emotional connection to what you’re buying. I say if you love fast fashion, knock yourself out. Buy 100 outfits. Just pray you have a big enough closet to fit all of it in. For those of you who can’t live without the luxury of fine fabric, with $1800 Pringle of Scotland sweaters and $5000 corset dresses from Alexandre McQueen, enjoy it. Just make sure you really want it.