How Premium Mediocre Conquered Fashion
businessoffashion.com
businessoffashion.com
The whole damn point of the Fashion Industry is to fabricate an experience of luxury and exclusivity in the first place! Otherwise they would just be commodity textiles with a far smaller margin - the ones any early developing country can produce with a little bit of investment.
Then there is the frankly incoherent bashing of millennials for not spending money on the "real high end" while complaining about them splurging and calling them entitled. Look do you want them to buy your overpriced crap or to join the list of victim entitled industries "killed by millennials"?
From a guy who feels entitled to profits at a large mark up, and setting the standards of taste for everbody. Who feels the place of the customer is to serve the merchant. Talk about projecting like IMAX....
As for why the fashion signaling niche has been taken up by logoed commodities: tt is the economy stupid. It is no wonder people are going for an accessible "high end" when essential expenses and debts related to them are high. People splurge a bit for mental health - done within their means it can be healthy even.
Plus even those who are better off can get dirty looks for conspicious consumption outside a sufficently matched setting - and not even in an envious sour grapes way like "I would totally get a Tesla/Buggaratti if I could afford it." but "What kind of asshole spends $50k on a handbag when even $500 is overkill? That is more than my car!".
I'm vaguely aware of a lot of this simply due to working with a tracking product for fashion brands, but where I'm really aware of it is with watches, which are a bit of a hobby for me.
Notably, brands such as MVMT, Vincero, Daniel Wellington, and Michael Kors, take the cheapest of the cheap quartz movements, case them up - particularly with MVMT and Vincero - in cheap, generic cases, with straps made of the lowest quality materials, slap their logo on, do a ton of fantastic social media marketing, and then chuck on a ridiculous markup to charge sometimes hundreds of dollars or pounds for these effectively disposable time-pieces.
MVMT in particular have come in for a lot of flak recently, because people have started calling them out on the fact that you can buy the exact same watch, minus the MVMT logo, on Alibaba for $5 as opposed to $100.
Still, overall these brands are absolutely killing it, and aren't having a great effect on more established brands that produce higher quality timepieces. These are brands that offer objectively better products, but aren't nearly as savvy with their marketing: Timex, Seiko, Orient, Citizen, Tissot, Inox, Hamilton, Zeppelin, Junkers, Junghans, and the list goes on. None of these specialise in luxury watches, but in the same price range as the fashion brands they do offer good watches, many extremely stylish, that will last for decades.
Premium mediocre might also be the reason that TAG Heuer get such short shrift amongst watch aficionados. They're nominally a luxury brand, and they certainly do make some decent timepieces. For example, the Monaco is a classic and - for a horology geek - their high end chronographs are seriously impressive (and way the hell above my price range).
Nevertheless, you really get ripped off on TAG's entry level quartz pieces. These are still kind of pricey, but the quality isn't there. For example, they will cheerfully charge you well north of £1000 for a quartz Aquaracer with a misaligned second hand. Not OK, but a lot of people buy into it because it makes a TAG Heuer attainable.
This in contrast to TAG Heuer, which is much closer I think to the article's subject. Before TAG bought them, Heuer produced a number of absolute classics (such as the Monaco you mention) that they're only just getting back around to continuing now, with the current theme of vintage styling being hip again (something I am, don't get me wrong, grateful for!). But to your point, for a while, TAG tried to get by on brand alone, and sold a lot of relatively low-quality stuff at almost-luxury prices.
There is a possible means, however, by which this kind of process drives the genuine premium market. Some set of customers who buy a DW are gonna wear it and love it for a week, and then start to get pissed off as they find out that the cheap plating rubs off, or the applied indicies aren't applied so well and are rattling around under the crystal now, or that it loses 30 seconds a day. They'll start learning about actual quality differentiators, maybe geek out a bit if they are that type, be bothered they blew $300 on a $5 watch, but maybe next time around they buy a Tissot, or a Seiko. And then an Omega after that. And it's possible I guess that the number of people who go through this process is larger than if there were no such 'premium mediocre' market at all?
MVMT and the like have come about due to forums and blogs. there’s no somehow about it. as mid market buyers have flocked to places where they can display and discuss their wares, MVMT etc have sprung up in symbiotic fashion.
unless you're buying a dive computer or ruggedized/solar-powered wrist GPS, you don't need a watch. you have an infinitely more accurate and powerful device in your pocket that fulfills the same function of telling time x 1000000 other applications
time-telling watches are now 100% a status symbol, heirloom, and/or enthusiast good
brand is and will become that much more important as the old school "quality" collectors and wearers die out and are replaced by brand/social signaling watch consumers
same to a lesser extent with clothing - you're sitting in an air conditioned office or car or your home for most of the day, but it's a powerful expression of who you are and what you can afford when you wear your new balenciaga sneakers out to drinks on friday night and pull out your $5 branded bic lighter.
mediocre quality is good enough because our environment is so tame, brand is everything
Plenty, possibly the majority, of watch enthusiasts today have never experienced a time when their mechanical watch was simply a practical tool.
So I can't see people who care about quality dying out.
These products - like overpriced fashion brands - are pure capitalist virtue signalling. They're personal advertising tokens and power objects, intended to display to the world that the wearer/buyer is conspicuously untroubled by any material scarcity.
It's not about quality in any of the usual senses of the word - except maybe in the archaic sense that being that kind of rich is self-defined as being "a person of quality".
edit: i guess i do know a lot of folks that wear a watch for brand status but those aren’t enthusiasts.
The one I have on right now is _probably_ a real 1957 Sputnik 1 Poljot commemorative watch. It could be a fake, but if it is it's got the pre 1962 movement in it, so its at least "period"... And I don't actually care, it only cost me $70.
I also have a somewhat-less-likely-to-be-genuine 17-jewel Sturmanskie Soviet Airforce watch like the one Yuri Gagarin wore into space in 1961. Again, I don't actually care if it's genuine or not - I like the idea of it enough. Somebody might have gone to enough effort to make a plausible fake out of period-correct parts, and sold it to me for ~$80 - good on them... I still get to use it as a story-starter...
I think people might think that's true, and I'm sure some people buy watches to show off but they're sure to be disappointed because here's the thing: nobody notices the watch you're wearing (except for, occasionally, other watch enthusiasts).
I felt a bit self-conscious the first few times I wore a "proper" luxury watch, but pretty soon realised nobody was paying even the slightest bit of attention. Now I don't even think about it.
or non-status jewelry. men especially can much more easily justify a watch over a bracelet.
There's a good chance you've chosen the tame environment you bemoan!
It doesn't require my fishing a phone out my pocket especially if it's cold, rainy, etc.
It's easier, as your boss suggested, to casually look at the time out of the corner of your eye in a meeting, presentation, etc. than it is to see it on your phone--especially if the phone is turned over as is often the custom in meetings.
No, no, no, no, no, no, NO!
1) A watch has a useful function: telling the time. And it performs this without the need for me to get my phone out.
2) Quality is important: I don't want everything I own to be disposable, and I don't like things that malfunction, break down, or otherwise stop working when subjected to the stresses and strains of normal life. In fact I prefer to buy high quality items that I enjoy and that will last for many years. Apart from anything else it's simply more sustainable than buying crap.
When everybody has a GPS on their phone they have automatic synchronization with satellite atomic clocks. As a matter of fact there is redundancy with connection to cell towers and Internet that also syncs the clocks with atomic clocks.
What happens is that with tech advancement the main utility of clocks had disappeared like photography killed the utility of painters as recorders of visual information.
Photography created impressionism first, then cubism and ended in absurd paintings like "White over white"(empty canvas)selling for hundred of thousands of dollars, color dots for tens of millions and so on.
People selling clocks will do it for different reasons that in the past, like signaling that you have so much money you don't care about wasting it.
I haven't worn a watch since I started carrying a cell phone and it perplexes me why they are still so popular.
For some. I like having a watch on my wrist where I can glance at the time rather than taking out my cell phone.
I do have an Apple Watch but, especially when traveling, I often just wear a $30 Timex because I don't need to charge it. I see a lot of cheap watches in the store so I'm guessing I'm not alone.
A lot of people these days also wear fitness bands of one sort or another. I suppose you could consider those fashion statements in their own right.
The wrist watch for men started being acceptable in WW1. Before it would be a matter of ridicule because it wearing a clock on your wrist was for women! The sheer ruggedness of the situation and making pocket watches less practical shed the stigma - nothing girly about a leather strap in muddy trenches in a hellish stalemate of a war.
There's a non-marginal privacy bonus - not having to take your phone with you...
This is perhaps the best pun ever to appear on HN. I hope it was intentional!
> I haven't worn a watch since I started carrying a cell phone and it perplexes me why they are still so popular.
That very much depends on the person. I started wearing a watch again because I wanted to spend less time futzing with my cellphone, which has worked. Secondarily, it's jewellery, so I do tend to match my watch to my outfit as a result.
For some people, there are some times when a watch is _way_ more useful than that phone in their pocket...
(Also, I can trust my 1962 vintage mechanical watch to not be silently tracking me and selling me out to advertising companies...)
Not having to rotate my arm to see the time was one big reason I got an always-on transflective LCD smartwatch (mine's the Amazfit Bip) instead of say, an Apple Watch.
A 10$ watch does everything the $1000 watch does. The $990 are purely a fashion statement. The quartz being low quality doesn't affect the usability of the watch in anyway. If anything, the cheap digital watch with silicone straps is the e most comfortable and fuctional of all watches.
This is unlike clothing, where the 300$ suit or jacket does often have genuinely better fit, comfort and lasts longer.
I wear a Citizen Eco-drive and get that naked feeling if I ever leave the house without it.
It's hard to imagine if you haven't experienced it recently but the difference between 1) fishing in your pocket, pulling out your phone, hitting the button, looking at the time then putting it back, and 2) turning your wrist 45 degrees is enormous. I can look at the time even when I have both my hands full, I can check when it's raining without getting my phone wet, I can start a timer without unlocking my phone and hunting for the Clock app... it's really been an eye-opener for how much better a watch is than a phone.
This approach to serving the midmarket has been around for a long time, especially in the consumer goods sector. Very lucrative indeed because the margins are so much higher when you charge premium for a mediocre product that cost correspondingly little to make. A good example is the Victoria's Secret underwear brand. It produces mediocre products but pumps huge money into marketing itself as a luxury brand. Worked well in N. America where until recently, there was little variety of underwear brands available.
I've also noticed over time that European fashion products tend to have a higher quality threshold even at the lower ends. I attribute part of it to the region having longer history with haute couture (high-end luxury), which in turn established higher quality expectations for the aspirational and lower end brands, as well as more choices of brands including within the underwear sector.
I went to a wedding recently, and someone who is not wealthy asked what the VSL logo on other womens’ purses was. It was actually YSL, for yves saint lauren, but this just illustrated to me that some people do notice. On the other hand, in more wealthy circles, anything with logos would be considered undesirable. At the end of the day, we’re all animals, and there is a lot of social signaling going on.
That's usually the case from the wearer's perspective, and for the brand, it is killing two birds with one stone.
People wearing Ferrari baseball caps, for instance, is probably an extreme of this?
I was in a Louis Vuitton flagship store recently and noticed that, roughly speaking, the cheaper the bags the bigger the logo. Their _really_ expensive suitcases only and a tiny LV monogram stamped into the leather on a couple of spots.
I have extreme aversion toward advertising a brand on my body. Uniqlo has nice basic clothes with zero logos on them.
For a lot of people it's more about repping the right brands than it is about having authentic items. This of course has consequences for the real brands who potentially lose sales to fakes, but from what I can tell it's similar to people who pirate movies, they only watch it because it's free, but wouldn't buy the dvd or see it in the theaters otherwise.
If you realise that a lot of the time the fakes come from the same factories and use the exact same materials as the real products, then this makes a lot of sense --- the only difference is where/how it's sold, and whether the original brand owner gets its huge profit.
The term they use is "Fashion Replica"
I'm very grateful for the laptop bad. It was an unsolicited present when I mentioned I was in the market for one, however when I went to his home to receive it, I couldn't help but feel disappointed in the feel of it.
On one hand, its very subtle. I prefer Coach products over something like LVMH or GUCCI because the labeling isn't in your face. And the Coach leather duffel I paid 800 for in 2013 is still with me in excellent condition after 6 years and 10 countries of daily use.
On the other hand, this is not worth 115USD. Its simply a laptop sized sleeve with a zipper, some padding, and and the official seal with a serial number. No straps, no additional pockets. I guess in some instances you really do pay for the privilege of the name.
From a clothing point of view, the worst thing that premium mediocre does is break the relationship between price = quality, which as a consumer is just depressing.
I noticed this when looking at Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Their most expensive car (the $200k Maybach) has a very small, subtle hood ornament. Their other cars have those huge MB backlit emblems in the grill.
I took this to mean that at a certain level of wealth you don't need to show off a brand to prove your worth.
I regularly upgrade to premium economy when I fly for the very real benefits of 1) earlier boarding, ensuring convenient overhead access to my carry-on luggage and 2) extra legroom; I find it's impossible to open and use a laptop with today's shallow seat pitch configurations unless you upgrade.
As for Starbucks, I'm paying a premium (but not much, as a tea drinker) for the amenities: air-conditioning, clean bathrooms, quality furniture. Too many local coffee shops lack these basics.
People will avoid WalMart like the plague because they don't want to be "someone who gets their clothes at WalMart," not because their jeans are too crummy for them to wear.
The article may be upside down:
"Luxury" is the real hustle, because they are selling you 'good design' that is 'inaccessible' to others, i.e. the 'inaccessibility' is the key point.
"Tory Burch" may actually be selling you really great design. But it's affordable and accessible. Nothing wrong with that, although it's probably positioned as less accessible than otherwise.
It's all misleading because this is a category in every consumer product and has been for a long time. Even in finance and private wealth management.
It's a segment in the marketing mix like anything else.
The King of this segment though by far is Apple: they sell you aspiration and a hint of exclusivity without actually being exclusive.
But remember:
+ Tory Burch stuff is a lot nicer than the stuff at Walmart by almost anyone's measure.
+ Before Starbucks, you couldn't get a cappuccino anywhere.
+ Premium Economy in flights is worth a lot if you get bigger seats without the service. No hustle there - it's what I want, it's the best thing.
I think where it gets ridiculous is when there's are seriously overpriced items, like the $200 keychains etc.. That's so sad.
Including the measures of people who both couldn't identify Tory Burch, and have never shopped for clothes at Walmart. That's how branding works.
> + Before Starbucks, you couldn't get a cappuccino anywhere.
There were coffee shops everywhere in the US before Starbucks. The trend migrated from the Pacific Northwesterners who created a coffee culture so the rain wouldn't make them kill themselves, and then that coffee culture collided with the urban leftover memories of 50s Beat coffee culture, back-to-nature hippie tea culture, and europhile intellectual coffee culture (a lot of tables had inlaid chessboards.)
This was homogenized by the aggressive expansion of Starbucks, starting in the Pacific Northwest again, wiping out most of the variations that we used to enjoy.
And I lived in places like Northwest Arkansas and Mississippi at the time, so this is not a big-city perspective.
If someone sees the value in something, never having heard of the brand, then that's not 'branding' - it's the opposite, it'd seem there's a universal appeal of Birch beyond what Wallmart provides that is not derived from brand.
+ Starbucks didn't wipe out 'coffee' - coffee was a total commodity and there were no 'varieties'. It was just called 'coffee' by everyone.
Moreover, Starbucks spread Italian style coffee: Cappuccino, Late, Espresso - without that, there'd be no Starbucks.
Champion Athletic hoodies is something I’ve strangely noticed has caught on more after celebrities starting wearing them. I remember Champion used to be the “lower-tier” athletic wear below Nike and Adidas that was sold at Walmart, but now is being sold on streetwear websites.
These were the keychains, perfumes, and ballcaps with astronomical margins that made the real money on the other side of the business, which was their loss leading spectacle (haute couture, etc.) You can't afford a DeHavilland Beaver airplane, but you can buy this saddle stitched wallet as a symbol to remind you of the image of one.
The aspirational products matter because they give us information about peoples true desires. It's a leading indicator for culture and politics. Even the Cambridge Analytica scandal was started by someone who was able to link peoples political leanings to the brands they chose. (I'd link the article but it's behind the FT paywall.)
When someone gets up in the morning, the things they choose to wear are an expression of what team they think they are on, what tribe they think they are a part of, who they think their main stakeholders are, and what kind of incentives motivate them. In business, that's about all you need to know about someone.
Given this, I get the impression fashion, business and culture are not the main field of the author of this op-ed.
the reach and scale of social media and how brands can interact (or not) with their followers has really changed the marketing game, and i think premium mediocre combines this insight with the poor economic prospects of the millenial generation
"Premium mediocrity is the story of Maya Millennial, laughing alone with her salad. She’s just not a millionaire…yet. She just doesn’t have a mansion…yet. She just doesn’t drive a Tesla…yet."
strongly implied is the fact that she never will have any of these increasingly mediocre/disposable goods, and that she will be happy to consume increasingly premium but increasingly mediocre asipirational products for the rest of her life because she will never be productive enough to earn close to what her parents earn to afford true quality goods
but also maybe this isn't an intrinsically bad thing and just a sign of a more disposable/fleeting relationship with houses, cars, etc. (which is bad on further reflection, does not bode well for the environment)
https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/11/luxury_branding_the_...
There is certainly "fake" craft beer, made by the macro beverage companies that is designed to basically trick people into shelling out more because they believe they are buying into some premium category. It's classic aspirational stuff all built around marketing.
But then... well, there's all the REAL craft beer, which is (for want of a better word) crafted, made with care, creativity and in an environment of independence and experimentation. This stuff is genuinely good, or can be (sometimes experiments fail and this is fine), and like indie movements in music, art and literature deserves to be celebrated as an authentic expression of human endeavor.
So don't buy Goose, buy Revolution. Don't buy Elysian, buy New Glory. Go see what your local brewery is making. Better still, make some yourself and see how you like it.
Don't order "$25 signature burgers" from those places with all the trappings of the hipster movement but are actually owned by investment banks, order them from your local places that're actually doing it for themselves. It's not that hard to tell the difference usually.
I guess I agree with the article in the final analysis because I hate to see big companies ripping the genuine creativity out of grassroots/artisanal scenes and turning it into a shadow of itself for profit.
So the GP is correct. See also https://meaningness.com/geeks-mops-sociopaths
I think that the main issue is the knowledge about the real value is very hard to obtain and this gives the marketeers an upper hand to flood the marked with the fake information.
A lot of the "overhopped" stuff is actually macro beer disguised as craft beer.
If you don't like it then that's fine of course, but I think it's hard to deny the amount of creativity and innovation that goes into making a really good beer.
But let’s be honest here — the “craft” people are the ones driving the entire industry forward. Look at how popular cider is, which had always been a niche thing before.
Reminds me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBb9O-aW4zI
The process of brewing beer produces interesting flavors. Why not take advantage?
The best I came up with so far is using Wirecutter reviews. This way I discovered, for instance, where to buy treat-quality bedding and towels, but it doesn't cover anywhere near the spectrum of things that I need. Sometimes I find something good and they stop making it a year later.
There are some fairly strong indicators in the construction of a pair of shoes that bear witness to quality (or not): an upper stitched to the sole is generally better than one that is glued, for example.
Me? I'll stick to my brand name athleisure thank you very much.
What's interesting is that some luxury brands's true high end lines are not really profitable (example: haute couture) and are actually supported by the brand's entry level "premium mediocre" products like canvas bags, perfumes, etc. In a way, the true luxury products acts as a marketing expense to bolster brand cachet, so their entry level products are coveted by the masses as status symbols.
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