I’m not a normal teenage boy. I’m a product. A product of the fashion world. A product of a window designer and a CEO. A product of advertising lavish lifestyles and unrealistic expectations. A product of $30 Puma sneakers with $300 selvedge denim jeans.
The world of fashion is vast, to say the least. It encompasses so much that some don’t even realize it. Look down. What do you see? Presumably, you see some sort of garment covering yourself. You can look around and see different garments: sweatshirts and button-ups and jeans. But those garments are more than mere pieces of cloth. They’re a brand name, a statement, an old favorite. And they’re the first thing someone sees when they look at you. What do you think you’re saying to that person silently noting what you have on? What assumptions are they making, and how do those assumptions affect your own perceptions?
Fashion has become about gimmicks and lifestyles. Looking down, I can see the brands I’m wearing are using certain marketing tools. “13oz raw denim that’s specially treated to be light and strong” “Timberland Pro” “Dri-Fit socks”. Sadly, the days of clothes selling themselves for being high quality are long gone- now it’s so marketed that you sometimes forget the article of clothing that is actually being advertised. Nike makes you run faster. Brooks Brothers makes you look like a gentlemen. New Era is the cap of champions. Levi’s can make any shape of man look slim and stylish.
It’s also about who is the face of the brand. Companies spend an extremely large amount of money to acquire celebrities to wear their clothes. It all started with Run DMC making Adidas sneakers cool to wear. Nowadays, the entire Kardashian family are all global brand ambassadors of Balmain and practically every actor has a preferred designer that he/she gets paid to wear.
There is also a fashion blog culture. If a normal person with a computer has a lot of followers, he/she is put on a pedestal. If that person shouts-out certain brands on the blog, the brand is able to get to a lot more places than it would have been able to with commercials and other forms of advertisement. The people with the blogs also are not super-wealthy celebrities or supermodels, so the clothes that they are wearing seem more attainable to the general public.
Brands and designers also give this illusion of accessibility through launching different lines. Ralph Lauren has about 7 or 8 lines, each geared towards a different demographic and income bracket. But the advertising is all the same: white men and women kicking back and relaxing in a clean, suburban environment. A lifestyle of lawnchairs, laughter, and lemonade. A lifestyle seemingly attainable simply with the purchase of a few articles of clothing.
Fashion seems like one big mind game. “If these people are living a desirable lifestyle, then why can’t I buy their clothes and live it with them?” seems to be the consensus from the consumers that I’ve read countless reviews of on recently-purchased clothing. It’s becoming a form of escape rather than self-expression. People buy certain clothes just to say that they have them. For example, Japanese brand Commes Des Garçons isn’t affordable to everyone. But if someone who does not have the disposable income to buy CDG goes and buys a shirt anyways, it gives off many different messages. It makes that person seem a lot more wealthy due to the pricing of the shirt. It makes that person seem like he is in the know of what’s cool and what isn’t. It gives that person a higher identity than the man wearing a white t-shirt without an embroidered heart at first glance.
Even though someone else have a higher perception of the man in the CDG shirt, does the man himself truly feel anything? Does he realize that he’s in the stream of constantly buying new articles of clothing when the trends change? If CDG does not become cool anymore, what will he do with that shirt? All of a sudden, the same perception that was once heightened is now lowered if the garments are perceived out of fashion. Time to throw out your JNCO jeans and Reebok pumps.
Brands rule fashion. People will often only look at certain brands and refuse to buy others I am not exempt from this- I’ve definitely coveted Puma sneakers more than others and I’m more likely to buy a shirt with a tacky pattern on it if it’s from a more recognizable brand. But like I said before, fashion brands aren’t selling to people. They’re selling products TO products. They are selling to products of certain environments. As I mentioned before, it’s all the same advertising. A product of south Detroit gets the same advertising as a product of Hollywood. The product of Detroit can get the illusion the Hollywood lifestyle by buying certain clothes and the product of Hollywood can stay in his/her bubble by buying certain clothes.
To flip the script, fashion sometimes romanticizes the lower class. In class, we’ve talked about how certain people from certain backgrounds “dress down” and don’t always buy clothing marketed to higher classes. Classes in general are romanticized- if you are lower class or middle class, the high class is romanticized. If you are of a higher class, the highest class is romanticized. But when you are a member of the high or the highest class, the lower class gets romanticized. However, the low class also comes with misconceptions of “thug” or “ghetto” styles. When the high class buy clothes designed for a lower class, the language and misconceptions come with it. I’ve had many firsthand experiences with kids who wear basketball jerseys and baggy pants and call themselves “hood” despite being raised within the same 5-block radius for all of their lives.
So when you’re browsing the thrift stores, looking on instagram, or even walking in the KDU, stop and think about everything I just said. Where do you come from? What has the fashion world given to you in your life? Do you even like being a part of that world that affects you so much? And, most importantly…
What are YOU a product of?
Putney Mediates the Media 