Please, someone who has logos upon their clothes, inform me, why?
And for those of you who claim it’s higher quality, how about an ad on a t-shirt? A t-shirt is a t-shirt, you really can’t get a great gap (no pun intended) in the quality of t-shirts.
My real question is why do you want to pay to become a billboard for a large company?
(I’m not trying to mock anyone, this is a serious inquiry).
The reason depends on the product.
Well, there are some items in my closet that are souveniers, or that I bought in support of some cause or organization. So those naturally would have logos.
The company I work for requires wearing shirts with the company logo on them sometimes - usually for certain kinds of meeting with customers. The shirts are company issued, though.
Some kinds of clothes are next to impossible to find without corporate logos. Jeans and athletic shoes fall into this category.
And then there are some shirts I have that I liked the overall look of them - whether it was the color or pattern on a button up shirt or the artwork on a T-shirt, and it also happened to have a company logo on it. I don’t go out of my way to find logoless clothes.
I can see the value of having a logo on a piece of clothing prior to purchase to be used as a surrogate for the quality/style of the clothing, but I never really “got” the point of not removing the logo (where practical) prior to wearing said item.
Accept adidas. For reasons I cannot explain, I always thought adidas was cool and am proud to wear their colors. I think the process is called identification. Some have a much higher need for it than others. Is autonomy the opposite? Someone high in autonomy probably wouldn’t wear a lot of branded clothing.
Like a lot of things we talk about on IMHO, it just boils down to a personal preference which can be very hard to understand when it differs from one’s own preference.
Reminds me of all the junior high girls that were interviewed on TV prior to attending a Madonna concert. When asked why all the girls were dressed like Madonna, their emergent leader responded “To show our individuality.”
Some of us don’t think corporations are a bad thing.
I, too, avoid or remove all logos from my clothes, except for my Adidas (although I do paint the stripes in rainbow colors).
The problem with logos or licensed images (like Mikey Mouse) is that it implys that you are not as cool as the brand, so you need the brand to lift your coolness level. I’m cooler than any brand or licensed image. Mickey Mouse and Calvin Klein should be wearing me. I certainly don’t need them!!
Sometimes I forget that it isn’t normal to sit down with a seamripper and a permanent marker destroying brands and logos after buying new clothes.
I’m not against corporations, I just don’t understand why I should pay top dollar for the privilege of giving them free advertising.
Historically, advertising is one of the costs of doing business. They pay millions of dollars to ad agencies to get their name out, and then turn around and expect private individuals, their customers to pay *them[i/] to do the same thing. If you want me to advertise your product, I should be compensated, just as your ad firm is compensated. And please don’t tell me that the shirts you pay pennies to manufacture in some third world country would cost more.
And, like even sven I don’t need some corporate label to demonstrate my worth, coolness or self esteem.
I get free tshirts at trade shows. Certain ones, like “Cisco”, get grabbed up quickly by my kids. I wear a “Caldera” shirt often to show my Linux colors (even though I use Redhat).
But note that these are freebies. I wouldn’t pay for logo wear unless it was from a place important to me.
From my favorite comic strip in the whole world:
As for myself, I work for a marketing/design company and believe me when I say that the reason corporations put their logo on stuff is first and foremost for their benefit. The fact that they can charge more for the same fabric with their logo on it than without is only the most obvious example of that phenomenon known as BRANDING.
This is not my opinion. This is fact.
Well, if you count team logos, etc, we are showing our support for a team, or advocacy of a product - i.e. we like Nike shoes, or golf gear, where performance, rather than appearance, is the key.
Logos for designers, where the design should be speaking for itself, I don’t get, but it is hard to buy jeans without at least a patch.
Also, a lot of stuff we geeks have we got free at trade shows, promos from vendors, company “morale boosters”, etc. If it’s free, I didn’t pay them, they essentially are paying me (thru free stuff) to endorse them.
Addendum:
My nightgowns all have corporate logos. Like some others here, I’ve acquired many t shirts at trade shows. I always get them in extra large so they’re comfy for sleeping & hanging around the house. They’re also great for messy household jobs because I don’t feel bad if they get stained.
What sort of logos? I don’t think I own many pieces of clothing with company logos on them (just my shoes that I can think of at the moment and I think they’re worth the extra expense for the brand because I feel they’re better quality), but I don’t exactly put forth a huge effort to buy clothing with or without logos. So long as they fit and look decent, I don’t really care too much.
But I have several shirts from organizations I belong to with logos on them. The entire point of wearing them is to show that I belong to that group. If I weren’t proud of being a member (or required. Gotta love uniforms), I wouldn’t wear them.
What about people who have clothing which has logos of companies to which they have no connection to except through the buying of their products? What about the kids who wear logo covered clothing?
What makes it “cool” to wear a logo? Why is it no longer cool to be different, to be your own boss rather than to pledge allegience to a company?
I see fellow teens sporting shirts with coke ads on them. Why? Isn’t it enough to drink the product, let alone have it’s logo upon your clothing?
I can understand if it’s mandated, as in a uniform in the workplace, But who would honestly think it was “cool” or stylish to have CK across the front of them or a coke ad emblazened on their backs.
And on a related note, I have seen people with tattoos of corporate logos (such as the dodge ram) and also logos shaved into their heads (such as the nike swoosh).
Why?
Dang, i thought I was the only one in the world who removes logos from clothes after buying them. Those leather patches on jeans come off easily and if you do it while they’re new, don’t even leave a spot after washing.
As fars as corporate logos, there is absolutely no compnay or commercial product in the world that I feel strongly enough about to be a walking ad for it. The only such item I own is the one with the name of the company I work for, and I only wear that to work-related events.
What really bugs me though is people wearing souvenir shirts from some place they’ve never been to. I’ll stop here before I get into a rant.
I always wondered about that too. I try to avoid it. I even tryn not to dress my sons in anything that broadcasts something.
It’s funny, in urban garb, to see someone with socks with a Nike symbol, pants with a Tommy Hilfiger “flag”, a Chicago Bulls jacket, NY Yankees hat, etc. What’s next, neon?
Like others who’ve posted, I have no problem wearing logos on my clothes if they’re for a company or group that I support or am part of. Kind of like when I bought T-shirts with my college name on them as a student.
I’ll also wear logos when the company has paid me to do so, by giving me the clothing or something else for free (Williams Communications paid for me to spend a week in Waikiki at a fibre optic conference, so I’ll happily use the neat backpack they gave me).
In other situations, if given a choice between a non-logo’d item and a logo’d one of the same price, I’ll usually choose the plain one. No ideological issues, I just don’t think most logos look that great.
What I really don’t get, though, are companies like Louis Vuitton or Fendi that plaster their logo over every inch of their products. That’s supposed to be fashionable?
Why wear it? Because you can. Because you want to advertise that you have enough money to buy free advertising for a company. I figure “because” is the general reason for anybody to stroll around wearing anything.
And, of course, it’s much safer to stay in a crowd. Being an individual can be really a scary thing. So why risk being kicked out? Wear what your group wears, no matter what the unbelievably illogic reason is, and you’re still in. That has to be the only reason why the so goth it hurts crowd can manage to wear mass-manufactured t-shirts lambasting labels. They’re rebellious, you know.
That is the saddest thing I’ve heard all day.
I have no problem wearing clothing advertising a brand that I repect, even to the extent that I’d pay extra for it. For example, my Campagnolo bicycle hat (I have heard of Campy tattoos as well, but I wouldn’t go that far).
Also, there tends to be enough brands out there that endorsing a couple doesn’t exactly get in the way of expressing individuality. Mostly, it just seems easier not to bother trying to avoid brand names. After all, brand name stuff is everywhere, is of decent quality, and generally succeeds at looking OK.
Almost every single shirt I own has a logo and the name of a band I like on it. It’s my way of saying “I like this band and this shirt didnt cost more than 20 bucks” (cept for the ones I get at shows damn 30 dollar rip off piec… anyways). Sure, it helps some assholes say shit cause I don’t dress all nice and try to look cool like them, but whatever.
But I dont think band logos are what we’re talking about. As long as my clothes fit good and look nice, I dont care who makes them.
*Actually, I’d prefer my pants without a giant logo on them, I like plain jeans with a tiny tag that doesnt draw attention to itself.
So, for me, wearing what I wear sets me apart, not for the sake of being different, just for the sake of staying true to who I am and for the sake of standing out in a not-so-standing-out way.
Wait, did that make sense? Someone help me out I have no idea what I’m talking about !
Because the shirt is either comfortable, cheap, looks good, or some combination of the preceding. In fact, it is usually all three. But those are also the same reasons I wear T-Shirts that don’t have logos on them.
Now that I think about it, I don’t discriminate against shirts based on logos, unless the logo is particularly ugly (but that also goes for the color, material, and style.) Of course, I don’t go clothes shopping regularly, probably about a once a year or so. The last time I bought an article of clothing it was a plain black T-Shirt with a pocket on the front; I have no idea what brand it was.
I’m wearing a shirt with a gigantic Batman logo on it right now (it was made in 1982.) I have a shirt with a Looney Tunes logo on it. It isn’t one of those cool Looney Tunes ones, though; it is a white T-Shirt with characters popping out of that red circle thing. I own one surf shirt. I couldn’t tell you what company makes it. I have an adidas shirt, but I spilled too much Mountain Dew on it, so I don’t wear it anymore. I have several shirts with band logos on them. I have a cool nerd shirt with fractals and “I love DOS” on it. I have an excellent Back to the Future shirt. I have several No Fear shirts that have the name of my old football team on them.
If someone sees my one of my shirts and assumes that I support, like, or am advertising whatever it says on it, I guess I don’t mind. I’m really just advertising that I’m wearing that particular shirt.