Near the turn of the millennium many teenagers, young adults, and (sadly) not-so-young adults bought into what were called designer clothes. While it might seem from the name that these were special artistically designed clothes, that was not frequently the case. In reality these were simple clothes like any others set apart only by two characteristics. First, the (often prominently displayed) logo of the designer; and second, the many times higher price. (As a side note, "the designer" was often not a designer at all but rather a company or brand) The fact that they were paying more for the privilege of advertising for a specific brand was not lost on the consumers of these clothes (jokes were frequently made to the same effect) but they bought and wore the clothes all the same. The reasons for this seemingly irrational behavior can be traced to the feedback loop created by the fact that everyone was seen waring certain logos, causing those logos to be viewed as a normal part of clothing, causing more people to buy logo-carrying clothes.
How did such a loop begin though? Many factors, but sex appeal was among them. Often stores would carry both average everyday clothes and immodest outfits together. While one would account for most of the sales, the other would fill the marketing materials. This would create "positive" associations with the brand name, thus making any clothes bearing that name trigger a small part of the response triggered by the immodest adds.
This was also done in many more subtle ways, but perhaps i should move on to the wonderful developments that freed us from this odd trend. Already at the turn of the millennium some web-business allowed people to design their own clothes, but these were expensive and only really allowed people to chose images to put on stock clothes. When these started allowing people to design the shape and makeup of their clothes, and more so when three dimensional printers allowed people to do the same thing at home, designer clothes soon went the way of CDs
How did such a loop begin though? Many factors, but sex appeal was among them. Often stores would carry both average everyday clothes and immodest outfits together. While one would account for most of the sales, the other would fill the marketing materials. This would create "positive" associations with the brand name, thus making any clothes bearing that name trigger a small part of the response triggered by the immodest adds.
This was also done in many more subtle ways, but perhaps i should move on to the wonderful developments that freed us from this odd trend. Already at the turn of the millennium some web-business allowed people to design their own clothes, but these were expensive and only really allowed people to chose images to put on stock clothes. When these started allowing people to design the shape and makeup of their clothes, and more so when three dimensional printers allowed people to do the same thing at home, designer clothes soon went the way of CDs
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