Thursday, May 21, 2009

Designer Clothes

These puzzle me. I don't understand why they are different to other clothes. Did the other clothes evolve? Were they created by having random bits of cloth thrown at an automated sewing machine? Are they timeless designs that have always been made? Were they designed by committee?

10 comments:

poppy tupper said...

Ok, you moron, it's an example of ellipsis. These are clothes which were produced by a NAMED designer, rather than generically froma store, like C and A, where you obviously get your clothes.

John said...

So what difference does it make if the designer has a name? Why can they not just take whoever designs the clothes at C&A (didn't they go bankrupt in the UK? I think they're still running in Brazil though) and name them?

Admittedly if the designer has a name, it means that you can see if they are any good at designing clothes that suit you, and then try the same designer again. But in my experience, they aren't...

poppy tupper said...

I'll say this slowly, in the hope that you might understand. 'Designer' is short for 'designer label', i.e. clothes that carry the name of the designer. OK. Ellipsis. You could at least have looked it up before your foolish follow-up. And yes, C and A did stop trading, but I was assuming (from your photgraph and your posts) that you only bought C and A clothes and that you get them from Oxfam.

Murray said...

"Why can they not just take whoever designs the clothes at C&A (didn't they go bankrupt in the UK? I think they're still running in Brazil though) and name them?"

Debenhams does this with stuff like "Jasper Conran" and "John Rocha", I think.

I only know this as I walk through Debenhams to get to House of Fraser…

John said...

I still don't see what benefit knowing the name of the designer (or the designer's boss's grandfather - I doubt Yves Saint Laurent still designs clothes) gives to the consumer.

For the shop, it gives a level of deniability. If John Rocha (for example) makes some rubbish clothes, it doesn't look as bad for Debenhams as if some Debenhams own brand clothes were dodgy. But if they're good clothes, it means people want to go to Debenhams to buy those clothes. So it's good for the shops. But I can't see why it's any good for the consumer, or why "named designer clothes" should be better than "non-named designer clothes". Which was kind of the whole point...

poppy tupper said...

As always, evengelicals have gone off the point. I don't give a toss about the relative merits of deigner or non-designer clothes. I was pointing out that the item was a moronic comment about the words 'designer clothes'. It does not suggest that other clothes were not designed, but that these carry a label with the name of the designer. No wonder evangelicals have no coherent theology. They can't understand language and they are unable to follow an argument.

Lydia said...

I used to like C&A. It did good jumpers.

Poppy, your reaction puzzles me a bit...I'm sure this post was one of Custard's characteristic silly puns and probably not worth getting too het up about! I thought it was quite funny :)

Though Custard, doubtless if you'd said it in my company, you'd have got a Look...

John said...

Poppy seems to be pretending not to have realised that much of the post was hyperbole mocking the term "designer clothes", and specifically the fact that they are seen to be better than normal clothes when the only difference is that we're told the name of the nominal "designer".

Poppy's comment is actually quite funny in an ironic sense, since it's something I wrote we're discussing!

poppy tupper said...

Now you need to look up the meaning of 'hyperbole'.

John said...

Oh, I should have added that it seems poppy thinks I have the ability to make clothes look more expensive than they were! I believe that picture is an example of me wearing Matalan-chic clothes!