Paullw said:We now even have cosumerism where people pretend that they aren't materialistic, because they are anti-label or whatever. Someone here buying Ann Dem or CCP is just as bad as those people mocked in the Nouveau Riche thread for buying LV monograms in crazy colours. The friends of either of these people will approve and compliment them. The buyers will feel good, in both the compliments, and that they like the way they dress.
i don't see it this way.
i think that there are people who are drawn to certain designers because they like the design - something in the way tha person approaches clothing appeals to their senses. if it turns out that there is a group of like-minded people, be they friends or fashion elite, who also like thatt designer or tha aethetic, it doesn't necessarily mean the person is dressing to please anyone else or to gain the acceptance of a particular crowd. and it doesn't mean that they AREN'T dressing to please the crowd either.
but, because the staus of brands like chanel and dior and LV is so much higher, and people use conspicuous consumerism to impress others, it's more likely that they will use those status-symbols in this way, and follow slavishly to the demands of the market.
i look at it as dressing from the *outside in*, as opoosed to dressing from the *inside out*.
There's even some argument (I'm not saying its a good one though...) that if someone buys a fake LV its better than buying CCP. At least they aren't putting such a huge amount of money into something so materialistic, and generally the vendor is going to be a poor market salesman, and its going to be made in a poorer Asian economy (where the people, do actually welcome even sweatshop labour, its better than nothing after all!), so it benefits the poor. Whereas buying the CCP/Ann Dem benefits a big department store thats already hugely rich, and the rest of the money goes to some Belgian who's poofing around all day making up new words to describe just how pretentious he is.
i don't think this is a good argument either!
in the twenty-first century, it's barbaric to allow people to work in factories for 12 + hour days, with little access to necessities like food, water, bathrooms, sunshine and fresh air, hazardous conditions and no health benefits, not to mention lack of fair compensation, time off, maternity leave, freedom from sexual harassment....to say that slave labor is better than nothing is to say no more than that living is better than dying.
yours truly, big mama meme