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Comment by underlogic | Hacker News Reader

What's up with Raybans? They make the cheapest looking vanilla generic glasses I've ever seen, put a tacky logo on the lens and sell for a fortune. Why does anyone buy them?

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Ray-ban along with almost every other glasses and sunglasses brand, and also almost all retailers of glasses are all owned by a megacorp called Luxxotica. The prices are all completely arbitrary and fixed.

Beyond this basically all prices for every consumer item are completely arbitrary. They almost never reflect real value and almost always are priced based on what people are willing to pay. Act accordingly.

They’re vanilla now because everyone copied their designs decades ago. They’re the original.

Doesn’t mean they’re worth the cost, but now you know.

I can't imagine anyone going to a whiteboard back in the day to make a pair of sunglasses and walk away with any lesser of a design than Raybans. Give human ingenuity at least some credit. you can tie your shoes you can out design Raybans

I think the same thing about business suits (not sure what the proper name for them is, the thing that normal CEOs and lawyers wear, with the necktie and everything). They look super hot and uncomfortable and I wore one to a wedding once and then swore them off for life. Ridiculous items. But people pay thousands for them, apparently.

Powerful apes signal status with fancy fibers, I guess.

Suits can be very comfortable to wear, even with neckties and dress shoes. The first monkeys probably though shirts were hot, stuffy and uncomfortable too. They are not ridiculous items.

Guess this ape will have to disagree with ya. I'll never wear one of those again.

Really? I want to be able to flexibly move my arms and legs into all kinds of directions, I want to sit down on grass or generally on the ground, stretch my legs out, sit cross-legged, crash on couches, snuggle into various types of chairs, cuddle with people, play with kids on random/unplanned occasions, etc. Suits restrict a lot of movement or would look like bags, compared to eg stretch jeans and a tshirt and hoodie. I often use hoodies as makeshift pillows or seat cushion (and offer that to others), not so sure how that would go for a suit jacket. And I can squeeze them into a backpack when warm, or throw into a random corner or on the floor. It’s also easy to lend them to other people when they are cold, where jackets really only fit people of the exact same stature. All that and more means „comfortable to wear (and use)“ for me.

You can do all of that with a properly tailored suit.

If it’s expensive you probably don’t want to roll around in the dust, but if you look at images of workers from hundreds of years ago they were essentially wearing suits (trousers, shirt, jacket, hat) most of the time, even for manual labor

Very formal these days though

Indeed, it seems like fighting in a suit is a common trope in Hollywood...

Blood and Bone: https://youtu.be/sFJ4R7rccn8?si=2hN9Lxz_pcXLlaJ-&t=121

Bond: https://youtu.be/KokmzxszDow?si=8TQko8lEpU6VQ48R&t=107

Though of course, some actors prefer to take them off before a fight :)

Transporter: https://youtu.be/farceMd4Zlg?si=n9p71hQbxiJvKP9Q&t=88

Guess it's different when you're a rich star who can afford tailored suits...

I want people to think that I fly my biplane while wearing a furry leather bomber jacket on the weekends.

I’m genuinely not sure how to say this without a little bit of snark, but do you…know how fashion works?

Sunglasses do seem to be taking the piss more than other items. An expensive pair of leather shoes can easily be justified by the cost of the materials, manual labor, build quality, and extended lifespan over cheaper options.

While sunglasses seem to be a bit of injection moulded plastic with some lenses for a 20x markup.

It’s mainly because of the Luxxotica monopoly.

If course, there are a lot of sunglasses that are not name brands and those a much cheaper.

For most clothing items, there are the luxury name brands, but then there are also affordable options like Uniqlo which sell basically the same thing for a very reasonable price.

For sunglasses, at least in Australia, you get the sunglasses stores that have $200-$400 nice looking sunglasses, and then $30 speed dealer sunnies at the servo. There's nothing in between and no one cloning the name brand styles for cheap.

It can’t just be from the Luxxotica monopoly. These things are not hard or expensive to manufacture.

For some reason, people think Raybans are an amazing brand.

Lol, this is HN after all. Our fashion icons are Zucky with a hoodie (backend) or Jobs with a black turtleneck (frontend).

Raybans? How do you see the screen with those plastic goggles on?

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