Jif Creamy Peanut Butter, the only food I have a psychological craving for… sorta like my wife and chocolate. My life is better for its existence. 
My brother is very trendy. (He is gay and lives in Atlanta)
I am not trendy at all. Labels don’t do anything for me. Give me a cheap gray T-shirt and a pair of jeans and I am happy.
The funny thing is, he used to work for Polo and would get a tremendous discount. Around the holidays, Polo would offer workers a 70 percent discount for one day. Needless to say, I wear a lot of Polo clothes. I may be wearing an $80 shirt, but I got it for free, so I don’t care.
Like many others here, I avoid clothing that has an obvious logo. Paying a company to advertise their product? Not if I can help it.
I tried asking an auto dealership once to remove their logo (the dealer’s logo, not the manufacturer’s logo) from the new car I wanted to buy off their lot. Their refusal was based on the “damage to the finish” that would result from removing it. They did take another $100 off the price, which made no real difference to either of us.
On the other hand, I do depend on brands to reflect quality and/or taste. I buy certain brands of some food/drinks because I prefer their flavor. I look for certain brands of clothing because they fit me well but don’t restrict myself to them. I have preferred brands when it comes to electronics and cameras, etc., because I know and trust their quality - and they’re significant investments.
I find that I also have a negative attitude toward people who do flaunt designer clothes, accessories, etc. I’ve never tried to explain it before, but I guess my feeling is that they’re not quite up to understanding that they’re being scammed and used by the corporations whose overpriced products they buy.
I shop for value and quality.
As someone who spent the lion’s share of his life (so far) being a penny-pinching cheapskate I will admit that sometimes the best value and quality is the “name brand”. Not always, but sometimes this is true.
I am fortunate enough to now have an income that allows me to pretty much buy whatever I want/need. I used to only buy what was cheapest, generally. Lately, however, I have realized that the only person I’m cheating is myself and my family. If there is no descernable difference between “name brand” and generic, I get generic. However, in many cases this is not true. Sometimes better is just, well “better”. Coke is better than “Big K”. Levi’s are better than (whatever) from K-mart. Newcastle Brown Ale is better than Hamm’s. I’m not buying this stuff to impress anybody, I’m buying it because I enjoy it more than I would an inferior product. I drive a BMW because it is simply a superior automobile (and I got a deal you wouldn’t believe! 
).
My old man used to always tell me, “The most expensive thing in the world is a cheap tool”. Too many times have I understood exactly what he meant. I’ve learned that money is simply a tool. I choose to use mine wisely.
P.S.- I have a pair of $300 sunglasses. I found them while skiing! Bonus!
Well, I must confess to enjoying “brand” stuff. However, maybe not in the sense the OP meant, in that I want people to look at me and think I’m cool…
Heck, I’m at work right now wearing a Boss suit. Why am I wearing a Boss suit? Because it fits me perfectly, it looks great, it’s made of wonderful fabric, and I got it on sale at 60% off the price! Can people tell that I’m wearing a Boss suit? Possibly, if you’ve got the eye for it, but not necessarily. To most people it would just look like “nice looking suit”.
So, to sum up my opinion, I agree with some previous posters regarding brand-name stuff; as long as it gives you value for money then it’s preferred. If I know that by spending $xxx extra on a shirt will give me a) more enjoyment and b) a longer lifetime for the shirt itself, then why not?
Oh, and speaking of brand names (and specifically clothes now), there’s a difference between brands that SHOUT OUT TO THE WORLD WHAT YOU’RE WEARING (i.e. “Look at me I’m so cool, I wear DumbAss like everyone else”) - these I tend to stay away from; high-quality products from renowned name brands usually don’t advertise their names or logos at all!
I see a pattern in some responses here.
I would buy “BrandX” if it were better quality than “NameBrand”, but NameBrand is better so I buy it.
I challenge this because many people assume “NameBrand” is better because it costs more.
Read Consumer’s reports and you’ll see quite often that a NameBrand is equal or perhaps slightly better quality than Brand X; but rarely better enough to justify the price discrepency.
Basically, you wind up paying for their advertising campaigns.
Maybe I have more time on my hands, or I’m just anal about this, but a BrandName has to prove to me that they are worth the extra expense. So I do
my research.
Ooops. That second line in my previous post was meant to be in quotation marks.
It was not meant to be reflect my opionion.
Perhaps, but I don’t think this applies in the choice of foodstuffs where choice is far more subjective than in, say, jeans, autos or other products that have easily-measured standards.