Some perspective on leather jacket pricing?

[nick123]

This.

I love the lounge, and love leather. But I don't pretend that the amount of time and money that most loungers, myself included, have spent on researching, sizing, and purchasing leather jackets is an unqualified virtue or a purchasing model suitable to everyone.

I think we all know why we're here haunting 'outerwear' and it has a lot more to do with passion than smart economics.

And it's an easy passion to fall in to. You find yourself with one of these jackets and you can't help but feel an emotional attachment with it, whether or not it fits, or you keep it. And in the process, you learn A TON about history, and get wrapped up in future prospects from seeing new offerings or others' purchases. Even if you never find "the grail" or a "keeper", it's not in vain. We've all received an Associate's Degree in Leather from the knowledge accumulated in the process. A good thing.
For instance, jackets exposed me to the dollar-euro relationship. I wouldn't have known or cared without them. Sounds silly but when I think about it, I've learned so much from this "passion". I might never walk away with a jacket I keep, but the knowledge has enriched my life just the same.

 

[Monitor]

Seb Lucas, I agree, not all shopping centre merchandise is bad and I buy all my T-shirts and such there, because it's cheap and I don't plan on wearing it for that long anyway so... But, I think what Mendelboaz means is that because majority of people are uneducated about quality, by using all kinds of slimy tactics, mall brand manufacturers are sometimes taking advantage of this by selling some really questionable stuff at a premium price - and I too would much rather if everyone was getting a better product for their hard earned money. Nobody should be paying more than $50 for a jacket made out of split leather.

 

[mendelboaz]

^this. Thank you for clearing that up, Monitor. I didn't mean to call every person who shops at a mall a dumb sheep. Just the people who follow fashion trends without really thinking about what they're doing. All of my T-shirts and undies and regular socks (not boot socks) are bought in 'regular' stores, and made in Bangladesh or what not. I don't seek exquisite quality in those clothing articles; just in my footwear, boot socks, denims, belts, dress shirts, watches, gloves, jackets and hats. Some people just don't really bother with quality in the clothing they buy. But a regular white T-shirt you buy for $10 (which, IMO, is an essential everyday clothing item) is something else entirely than buying highly overpriced Diesel shirts or those "Obey" clothing items without asking yourself 'Why am I buying this? What makes this so special? Is the price justified?'. Fashion trends, those are pests. And for the record, I really don't like being told to take a chill pill.

 

[Mark Ricketts]

Please stop referring to people, regardless of their shopping choices as dumb sheep. I have been a shepherd all my life and find this highly offensive to my animals. Sheep have characters, individuality and intelligence.

 

[Mark]

I'd like t second that, we need to be careful not to get too full of ourselves. There's a place in every ones wardrobe for a bit of mall gear..and some of it is fine in my opinion.

 

[tropicalbob]

It's all kind of worth it, though (I mean the researching and buying from a respectable manufacturer), when a complete stranger asks you on an elevator, "Excuse me, but where did you get that jacket? What kind of leather is that?" A lot of the kids today have never seen horse, steer, or goat.

 

[Worf]

Hi Worf, just curious, I have a Bose, i'm no hi-fi buff but I always Bose were pretty good!
On the subject of leather I agree, Timberland often produce some very nice jackets at crazy prices, £700 up! But not a patch on my Highwayman in my opinion.

I'm I guess what you would call and audiophile, I'm also a professional musician in that people pay me to play music. I study sound reproduction and music reproduction VERY seriously. Bose is a pet peeve of mine but I won't clutter up the forum here with my numerous problems with them. If you're interested in the real skinny... PM me and I'll tell you. Don't want to hijack anyone's thread.

Worf

 

[mendelboaz]

Please stop referring to people, regardless of their shopping choices as dumb sheep. I have been a shepherd all my life and find this highly offensive to my animals. Sheep have characters, individuality and intelligence.

Can't really think of any other animal that just follows the herde, but I did not know sheep have individuality, character and intelligence. I suppose the best term would be 'dumb fashion followers', then.

 

[Superfluous]

We all started out as mall shoppers – indoctrinated by our parents and early peers – and most of us surely continue to patronize the mall to varying degrees. The difference is that, over the years, we have gained additional knowledge about the mall offerings and, therefore, we are smarter, more informed shoppers, both within and outside the mall. The mall still serves a purpose and offers products even for the informed shoppers.

Many (by no means all) mall shoppers are less informed. They follow the crowd and their peers, as steered by the corporate fashion media and marketing blitz. There is a certain safety in following the crowd, as opposed to venturing off into the great unknown with brands that none of your peers are familiar with. There is also a certain safety in being able to see, touch and try on a product before purchasing it – how many times have we ordered a jacket by e-mail, then waited in angst hoping in turns out right. You don’t have that anxiety at the mall. There is also greater acceptance when pursuing mall brands. Your peers will recognize and appreciate the brands you wear, and you will never hear the following comment: “What the hell is ‘Buzz Rickson’?” For many, there is also a very strong social dynamic associated with mall – it is a social outing.

Yes, the pricing at malls can be ridiculous, and superior quality can often be found for less money through alternate sources/channels. However, these alternate sources/channels are unknown to many, and do not offer the safety, acceptance, social component, and other factors associated with mall shopping. Like it or not, but the vast majority of the planet is far more impressed with a John Varvatos leather jacket as compared to an Aero or Goodwear. Many people are unwilling to shell out big dollars on products that their peers will neither recognize, nor praise.

I have two teenage daughters; therefore, I go to the mall more often than I would prefer. My younger daughter recently did an interesting project for school. She purchased a black shirt from Brandy Melville (“BM”). For those who do not have teenage daughters, BM sells utter crap – disposable clothing that rarely lasts more than a few weeks. Nevertheless, BM has taken on iconic status with teenage girls. My daughter then purchased a nearly identical and indistinguishable black shirt from Target. Then, she switched the tags for the shirts, such that the Target shirt had the BM tag and the BM shirt had the Target tag. Then, she conducted a survey where she asked teenage girls which shirt they preferred. She surveyed over 100 teenage girls, and over 90% preferred the Target shirt with the BM tag, even though the two shirts were identical. Safety and acceptance!

Frankly, I am pleased that most shoppers are not familiar with the esoteric brands that I patronize. If everyone knew about these brands, and they gained popularity/acceptance, the increased demand would likely impair my ability to purchase these brands (e.g., longer wait lists, and quicker sell outs). Moreover, if these brands attempted to keep up with the rising demand, quality might suffer. Therefore, I am pleased that most people are unfamiliar with many of the brands that I patronize, even if I have to occasionally respond to the uninformed inquiry: “Buzz who?”

 

[Seb Lucas]

^this. Thank you for clearing that up, Monitor. I didn't mean to call every person who shops at a mall a dumb sheep. Just the people who follow fashion trends without really thinking about what they're doing. All of my T-shirts and undies and regular socks (not boot socks) are bought in 'regular' stores, and made in Bangladesh or what not. I don't seek exquisite quality in those clothing articles; just in my footwear, boot socks, denims, belts, dress shirts, watches, gloves, jackets and hats. Some people just don't really bother with quality in the clothing they buy. But a regular white T-shirt you buy for $10 (which, IMO, is an essential everyday clothing item) is something else entirely than buying highly overpriced Diesel shirts or those "Obey" clothing items without asking yourself 'Why am I buying this? What makes this so special? Is the price justified?'. Fashion trends, those are pests. And for the record, I really don't like being told to take a chill pill.

I hear you, but it's easy to over think clothing and given the way the world is going, what we wear is of infinitesimal significance. The chill pill reference came about because your comments sounded to me to be shrill. But I forgive you.

 

[bn1966]

The Mall: A pleasurable experience? Over here in the UK we have had a Mall culture for a few years now. In my part of SW England not far up the M4 there is a Mall, I occasionally drive up for a visit...the wife likes 'Super Dry' and there's a big store there, the Step Kids like 'Super Dry' too..my boss even likes 'Super Dry'...I don't but I'm in the minority around here.

I like M&S or more specifically their basic T shirts (Black & white on offer), I really like their sweatshirts in basic colors which I then take to the local seamstress....she cuts the arms off at the elbow & sews them up & I then have that 'McQueen' effect after a few washes and team them up with my Roughwear A2.

I too buy my underwear in the Mall but not my boots or shoes, for the price the under wear is good value. I buy my coffee & sushi on the odd occasion I'm up there and it's all part of the experience.

I get a certain pleasure wandering around the Mall leather shops & looking at their jackets & the prices, I generally pay a lot more for my my WW2 replicas but acknowledge my jacket passion was originally started at the age of 14 by a Mall type burgundy box jacket. I even come across some current Alpha Nylon flight jackets in the Mall and appreciate my originals & USA made repros even more.

Back in the day I was a Mod & the influence of this & the 'one up man ship' that came with it (and appealed to my ego) has led to me rejecting the 'mainstream' the 'Mall' & it's kin. I've gone for the rare and exclusive & the customized. This is true of what I wear (apart from M&S underwear T-shirts & sweatshirts), drive and ride...and has cost me £££££...$$$$$ in the process.


I still love wandering the Mall or as my ex Teddy Boy father would say..."going to town"

 

[xOUTLAWx]

Just don't buy. The market has gone crazy about everything, house, clothes, cars... Lot's of clueless peoples out there with money to waste. I set a resonable limit and I stick to it.

Nick123 is right on the money. Regarding mall jackets, I've had this discussion more times than I care to remember - all my friends dress at the mall, and each year they buy their leathers there, usually on discounts, always choosing to forget that the last years purchase fell apart by itself just from hanging in the closet - and have reached a conclusion that people, in general, do not really care... Mall jackets are either super cheap, or expensive because of the brand name, and people just don't want to bother with what might exist in between. I know a girl who's regularly dropping $2000 on brand name jackets. Once I tried to talk to her about the quality of the stuff she's buying, but she concluded the conversation with - ...who would want to wear the same jacket next year?. Talk about different mindset...
This year she bought a Perfecto-styled jacket from Diesel. When I pointed out that this is the first time someone paid more for a cheap knock-off than what the original costs, she didn't quite understand my point, nor really cared to.


Though personally, I wouldn't mind buying a reasonably priced mall jacket if they weren't all so damn ugly. Especially in Europe.

Though, Seb Lucas made a very good point - Most expensive Vanson is $700. Model A is $500, Comet $450. What's excuse does LL/Langlitz/Aero/Schott/etc. has, again?

Prestige, that is what they are pedling.

 

[nick123]

No company needs an excuse to justify their prices. If I open a shop, the freedom to price my goods as I please (within regulation) is something which no one can/should take away from me. Seems like a basic freedom.

 

[xOUTLAWx]

No one is questioning that.

 

[trapp]

It's tempting to accrue concentrated knowledge and experience around something specific and then start looking down our noses at those who know less or nothing about that particular slice of life.

Picture a grammarian exasperated by all of the pronoun errors and misplaced modifiers that appear in advertising and her friends' emails. Now picture the grammarian beginning to look down on large parts of the population for contributing to the erosion of proper English. She starts noticing awkward word clusters and sentence patterns that many, many of us have grown accustomed to using (because, like a mall jacket, they generally serve their purpose) and instead of realizing that people use language in different ways and for different reasons (sometimes content to mirror and echo) she instead concludes that we're all just "followers" and "sheep".

Her observations about usage might be accurate. But not everyone is awake to, or even cares about, these facts of usage. We have different priorities. Does that make us sheep?

 

[Monitor]

Excellent post by Superfluous!

Power of a brand name is a very interesting thing. None of my fashion following friends care about any of the brands that I wear (Aero, Schott, Vanson, so on) simply because they are not familiar with any of these names. Showing them how much my jackets cost however, seems to confuse them, as they cannot make up their minds whether they're suppose to like it now or not because, while the price clearly screams prestige and all that goes with it, how, then, had they not heard of these brands before?

At the end they'll still go with the well known and accepted brands... Which kind of confuses me because, while obviously, neither quality nor visual identity of a garment plays any role in the selection process, why do different people choose different, equally expensive and shoddy brand names? I know why I'm sticking with, say, Aero - summed in one word; research. I know what I'm getting - or rather, I know what I believe I'm getting, and while it could all be a bunch of wild lies, at least I know that I've based my decision on something. But, what exactly makes one go with, say, John Varvatos Perfecto knock-off instead of Diesel Perfecto knock-off?

There is a strange, illogical power to it all that I don't seem to understand. But yeah, I too am quite happy not many people are familiar with Eastman and I too am not too eager to share this knowledge with just about anyone.

 

[Smithy]

It might have been touched on but if not, it must also be noted that many people "out there" couldn't give a rat's arse about clothing and see the stuff in the spirit of function over form. They'd probably laugh their heads off if they knew what many around here spend and obsess about in terms of jackets, boots, jeans, etc. But I'd wager that many of those people would spend an exorbitant amount (proportionally of their income) on something in their lives be it sporting/leisure related, automotive, etc, etc. It's human nature to have an interest and a passion for something(s) and here, for many, it's vintage or vintage-inspired clothing. Just don't expect the vast majority of the public to be concerned about such things as well.

To use leather jackets as an example, most out there would be very happy with one bought from a mall, and would probably think that us here with all our handwringing about hide choice, linings, 1/2 an inch here, 1/2 an inch there, would think us a bunch of anally retentive muppets with too little to worry about

Different strokes for different folks, simple as that.

 

[Seb Lucas]

You're right Smithy.

Many of the folk I know would tend not to spend more that $50-60 on any item of clothing, jackets, jeans, shirts, you name it. And they are quite happy being that way.

 

[bn1966]

Spot on Smithy

 

[zhz]

I think the mall jacket is more "fashion" to most people, TBH, I think most people like modern style rather than vintage style jacket. So the mall jacket can price whatever they like since it is popular. People do buy it because everyone does the same thing, even the quality is bad, they just used to it.