Expensive - or how the luxury market is changing
'01.04.2017'
I began to catch myself thinking about this idea a season or two ago. When I saw that in designer collections there are strange things that are surprising to people brought up by lectures of Evelina Khromchenko about a basic wardrobe with an indispensable trench coat and pencil skirt.
For example, a freeform sweater Valentino, made in the best traditions of the “mad lawn” style, which has many fans on the needlework forums. It was once actively discussed on Stella Klar's blog.
However, the freeform has been for a couple of seasons. Fresher here: sweater Chloe, painfully reminiscent of the creepy olympics sold in the Sporttovary stores in the USSR. One and a half thousand dollars, by the way.
And yesterday Arina Kholina published the text on her page. And I realized that my thoughts are forming a certain puzzle.
There is a big mistake in this “This is a style for people on the street, not for those who hang out at shows and buy designer things”. Fashion has changed and the world has changed a lot.
“People of the street” are everywhere now. And this is not a concept of status or financial condition, but a concept of worldview. People today often no longer buy things that should communicate something about their status. People are increasingly buying things that communicate something about themselves: their passions, worldview, ideas and thoughts. Therefore, a businessman in a T-shirt Kiss - is no longer a rarity. And his subordinates do their best to “keep the status” with expensive suits and watches. However, in order to have the courage, relatively speaking, for a T-shirt, it is not necessary to be a large financially independent unit. You can be anyone. Today, the world allows everyone to express themselves. If you, of course, have something to express.
People who dress strangely have money today. Previously, only respectable men in suits and elegant ladies in furs and diamonds went to such a consumer level (designer brands with a sweater price of a few hundred or even thousands of dollars). The rest sought to at least visually get closer to them, buying cheap costumes and jewelry with zirconium. But the world has changed and continues to change. Today, money is not where it used to be. And, relatively speaking, every freak has a chance to open a startup and make a million. And he will dress in the same way as before. But already ready to pay more. Therefore, brands are actively going to meet such a buyer.
If a person is willing to pay and has money for this - he will buy. The myth of an unassuming genius - he often remains a myth, because such geniuses still have their addictions and weaknesses, for which they don’t spare money. For example, I used to google Steve Jobs's wardrobe, which seemed to the world as an icon of asceticism in its unchanging black turtleneck. Here are just a turtleneck this - from Issey MiyakeThe approximate online price is about 300 dollars. And given that an individual order was otshit for Jobs - the price of each individual turtleneck can be much higher. If you continue, glasses Lunor cost from $ 450, and the price tag on the sweaters vonRosenwhich in recent years Jobs wore over a turtleneck, because of the weakness of the severely cold, it starts from $ 650. Add to this quite affordable jeans and sneakers. New Balance - and in general, the price of everything that was worn by Jobs exceeds one and a half thousand dollars. Quite an expensive asceticism, don't you think?
In general, and the popularity of the normcore today is precisely that those boys and girls who wore checked shirts in the nineties are now developing new technologies and receiving huge fees. And still like checkered shirts. And ready to buy them, not really analyzing the price tag.
Remember how we all in the nineties bought strange Turkish sweaters in the markets. And they seemed to themselves very fashionable and stylish. And wore them with jeans, bought in the near second. Today you can buy the same sweater or cardigan from mohair for two thousand (by the way, this Saint Laurent).
It was possible to create the illusion of a more expensive kind or create the appearance of belonging to another social group and another status. And further, as a consequence, to approach this status in reality. That is why at some point the stylists became new preachers: they helped take steps to a new life.
Today is both easier and more difficult. Today, you can wear anything you like, combine it with anything. And the only question is whether this is all your individuality, or is it just a blind copy of the image seen somewhere. And that is why someone will buy a camouflage park on a second and will look stylish. And someone will buy again the park Saint Laurent for 1300 dollars and will feel (and look) a scarecrow.
And then everyone is already playing this fashionable game himself. Someone wants to mimic the crowd as much as possible in order to remain “invisible”. Someone wants to play on sexuality or femininity. And someone creates their own image, as a kind of concept.
Therefore, today stylists are not always about how to choose the right shoes under the skirt. But rather about the best way to read your “I” and make it readable to others.
