Designer Fashion For The Masses Or Selling Out? by Cat Watson
I am a fashion snob. I love fashion. I love the exclusivity of designer fashion. I love the feeling of walking into a designer store walking on the soft pile carpet, having the luxury of space and admiring the garments sparsely hung around the store. I love the hand feel of the beautiful fabrics, I appreciate the cut of a designer garment, and I love not having to elbow my way past the hoi polloi fighting over the bargain bins. I also love finding a new designer, seeing a bright new talent that is untamed and exciting. Speaking to them and feeling their enthusiasm for their product. The passion young designers have is contagious and revives my love for the industry every time I am lucky enough to come across a budding Galliano or Westwood. It reaffirms to me that I am a fashion hunter; I find new designers and I buy something that not many others have, when people ask me where something is from I take pride in telling them it’s from a little designer I found, hidden up some back street off Brick Lane. It’s like treasure. Jimmy Choos collaboration with H&M has gone down as the best yet, selling out in a mere 10 minutes! I am sure Tamara Mellon, of Jimmy Choo is enjoying a glass of Bolly in celebration. An absolute success! Or is it? Whilst H&M is proud to be collaborating with inspirational designers and is making high fashion affordable and available to the masses I have to question if this is really as great as the commercial magazines make out to their fashion hungry readers. If, as a mere mortal you got to see the collection in store you must have won one of the golden tickets, as most product was sold to the VIPs and fashion moguls who were sent invitations for the launch. With sales restricted to four pairs per customer and each only allowed to buy one size I have to wonder why so many pairs of Jimmy Choos for H&M have ended up on EBay? Hmm. So, not so beautiful that you have to keep them in your dressing room with photos of the shoes on the cherished box just like Carrie in SATC. It appears not, as the seven pages of EBay offering Jimmy Choo at H&M makes the product suddenly appear less desirable. I am sure H&M are on to a winning formula, hook up with the big boys, sell a limited amount of product and use great marketing to create a product that sells even when the prices are treble the usual price they would have in store and in the middle of a recession. The fat cats sit back and pat their full tummies. It is after all, all about bringing in sales and in the current economic climate you have to take your Philip Treacy hat off to them. Some may say that these collaborations help the designer brands to survive; freeing up cash flow to go on creating beautiful product. It is always a shame when designers fail or get bought out by one of the fashion giants, but for me this is little different. This is selling out, taking the exclusivity away from their brand name. Designer is a considered purchase, an investment. I don’t want the girl down the street to own Jimmy Choo, not unless she has saved her pennies for weeks and has gone through the experience of walking into a Jimmy Choo store, for the 20 minutes it takes to make a purchase that girl feels special, she is being waited on, the smell of the new leather as the box is opened in front of her is irreplaceable, sitting on a designer sofa as she slips her pop sock covered foot into the shoe shaped piece of luxury. As she leaves the store with her beautiful high gloss Jimmy Choo bag she has an air of elation about her, and when she gets home she will take the shoes out of the box and caress them. She will love these shoes, she will place them in a precious place in her wardrobe and whenever she feels sad just taking the shoes from their box will lift her spirits. Jimmy Choo at H&M will be bought greedily and four in a bag, taken home and flung to the side with all the other credit card purchases. As soon as the euphoria of the limited edition sales hysteria passes she will realize she doesn’t want four pairs of H&M shoes, she wants an original piece of Jimmy Choo not some poor mans version and will promptly put them on EBay and make some money from another fool who thinks buying a brand name is all you need to be stylish and fashionable. We live in a ‘I want it now’ culture, where we are incapable of saving money, so we prefer to have it now and that means having it cheap, bought in bulk and made in China, but we are selling ourselves short. Designer is designer. Designer is luxury. Designer is an experience. Designer is not ubiquitous high street partnerships. At the end of the day you can walk the high street and buy a direct knock off of this seasons catwalk collections in any number of stores. You would have been able to find something similar to the original Jimmy Choo design if you shop around the stores yet H&M has found a way of making us pay more for something just because they have endorsement from the designer they would more than likely have knocked off anyway. Personally, I would rather hunt down some new, more interesting designers that you won’t find every other fashion credit card waving sheep wearing. True style is about finding gems, finding the small unique designers that can’t afford to be on the high street and paying them what the product is worth. For me fashion is not all about sales figures and lining your pockets full of money. Fashion is so much more than that. In my opinion, buying designer/high street collaborations is selling out to fashion as much as the designer is selling out to the high street retailer.
