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.

Although I do praise Steve Madden for pushing the envelope in letting their clients customize their own shoes last fall, I’m appalled that they have the galls to blatantly copy designer shoes to sell them off as their own at a cheaper price.

Repeating their offenses from Christian Louboutin to most recently Balenciaga. The pair in question came into light at the Business of Fashion blog where the sporty multi-colored pump has been grossly and obviously copied by Steve Madden. Not only that, those lacy peep toe, construction boot pumps they call “Bombb Nat Nubuck” are also a knock off of Balenciaga’s Fall 2007 line. Perhaps the sales won’t mean much significance to Balenciaga’s financial portfolio, but designers need to protect their designs from profiteering companies like Steve Madden. Even now there is barely a dent or law that cracks down much on counterfeiting, much less crack down on companies who blatantly parade these copies around proudly with their own names stamped on it as if they were geniuses. And yet, they are. Because fashion is perhaps one of the few places where this sort of plagiarism can go unpunished no matter how big the elephant in the room is.

Funny how Steve Madden is expanding to a store within the Eaton Centre soon. I used to like them for making some cute shoes, but now, like Nine West, they’re not original enough to make their own designs and resort to copying for the sake of sales. A shame.

The predicament is typical and expected though. People don’t want, or can’t afford, to drop $500-$1000 on a single pair of shoes, even I haven’t taken the plunge yet to get shoes for that price. More importantly though, I put an emphasis on durability, I’m pretty rough on my shoes as I can get them scuffed quite easily, and prancing around in heels all day is a painful venture. Perhaps I should take heed of my cousin’s advice and start looking at Naturalizer shoes for comfort and classic styles. Growing old or growing wiser?

Above is the Steve Madden’s Balenciaga peep toe boot pump (wow, we gotta find a better name for this…), and I have to admit it’s a hot shoe I’d love to sport myself – but I don’t buy knock offs (and they never carry my size anyway).

Image credit: Steven Madden

Ever since passing by Rosenstein Paris on De La Montagne, I’ve been dying to step inside and look but never got the nerve to do so until today. As a half basement store, its windows meekly peek out onto the street, but one look inside and you’ll recognize the unmistakable red church-like arches of Christian Louboutin. I was like a kid with her nose pressed against the glass, those red arches screaming my name.

Today was it. I was going to step inside and have a look and also learn a little more about the other lines they carried mainly Repetto and Lucien Pellat-Finet. To my surprise though, there was an exhibition going on. There were about 20 or so pairs of ballet flats in glass cases with celebrity names.

After a shy introduction to the saleswoman, she opened up and told me that they were having an exhibition to celebrate Repetto’s 60th anniversary in the business. Each pair on display were uniquely designed by a mix of celebrities and world class designers like Helmut Lang, Proenza Scouler, Catherine Deneuve, Brigitte Bardot, Vanessa Paradis and Chloé Sevigny. Some were whimsical, one pair designed by Barney’s was covered with wiggly eye stickers, another had the men’s Zizi shoes made out of wax.

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I know some of these high fashion designers didn’t invent the wheel or made the most innovative designs, but it takes a lot of galls to knock them off and sell them as your own.

Like these glittery pairs I found on Zappos.com knocking off Christian Louboutin‘s pair at a fraction of the price. So far I’m glad I have never bought any knock offs of any sort, (I love shoes, I just can’t afford them) but I wouldn’t be caught dead wearing these if I knew the real thing was out there.

Sandals by Coloriffics on the left, the real Loubous on the right.

Unfortunately, Nine West is a major convict when it comes to knock offs. They’ve blatantly copied last season’s Louboutin with the knotted slingblacks and Prada‘s blocky looking banana heeled sandal.

Nine West on the left, Prada on the right.

With fashion being disposable within 6 months time, I believe it’s time to invest into some quality clothing that are classic and never out of style, even if that means buying expensive clothing. I’m tired of fast fashion.

Image credits to Christian Louboutin’s website, Style.com, and Zappos.com.