Rick Owens

[lowrey]

The discussion is heading to a wrong path, people are mixing the fact that there are goods of shitty quality made in Italy and goods made in a country where the typical wage for workers is 95 pounds each month. Even if the quality of the above pieces is mind blowing the fact that they are produced in a country where the basic wage is way beyond the point of survival is devastating for me. This is the subject that needs to be addressed, discussed and criticized. Rick's quality is a different subject, may I remind you that there were numerous pieces in the past that had quality issues and all of them were made in Italy.

This.

[zamb]

I was recently think that maybe all the Drkshdw stuff was made there. Quality of Drkshdw isn't very good. Blacks fade quick, and all of my sweaters with an elastic end at the sleeve have busted seams. Seems like this was made in a cheap labor country.

On the other hands, since costs are so low, labor intensity can go up and therefore quality can go up. Quality Checks are perhaps better etc...

there are several things to consider in these matters and they are not always very simple.

Cheap labor Country does not always mean cheaply made goods. there are a lot of places in the world where one can have something made at very inexpensive costs, but the resulting product would be better than if it were made in a first world Country.

I am always tempted to set up a factory in Jamaica for exactly this (among other) reason(s)

Another thing to consider is this: Who is making the product that says made in Italy?
Is it Italians that are making the Products, or is it Immigrants from poorer countries who have this kind of Skill, migrate to Italy and end up being employed in these kind of Jobs?

[josecc]

the fact that they are produced in a country where the basic wage is way beyond the point of survival

I am not quite sure this is entirely true. I have two reasons.

First, we do not know the wages paid by Olmar & Mirta, there is a large variance within an industry and between sectors in any given country.

Second, we do not know the cost of living in Moldova. For instance, in a very stylised exercise, the "average net wage in manufacturing branch with lowest earning" in Moldova is ~€100 p/m (source,p.1), and the "average net pay of factory workers in the clothing sector" in Italy is ~€1100 p/m (source, p.28). Obviously, these salaries are much lower than the national average in each country, but I am trying to compare something similar. Now, adjusting for cost of living in each country, the PPP conversion factor in USD (Purchasing Power Parity, source), for Moldova and Italy are 6.29 and 0.76, respectively.
This implies that the cited monthly salary in Moldova is 629 USD(PPP) and in Italy is 836 USD (PPP). The ratio is 0.75, the 25% difference could be due to productivity or, if we ignore the higher italian skills (implied by tradition), difference could be labour frictions due to bad institutions or as many would say "abuse of the owners".
I know this is a very reductive exercise and the cited figures are low and are average. My point is that if the salary paid by Olmar & Mirta is at least 25% higher than the lowest in the manufacturing industry, it would be similar, in terms of the cost of living, to the average salary of factory workers in Italy. Besides this, we do not know if the workers in the Rick factories in Moldova have better alternatives, what if working there is their first best?

[bukka]

Besides this, we do not know if the workers in the Rick factories in Moldova have better alternatives, what if working there is their first best?

Because they start with a shitty set of option doesn't mean brands are allowed to take advantage and offer the best, yet terrible, option. That's exactly how big brands try to defend their business in countries like Bangladesh: "we are better than any other alternative this people have". They still pauperize this countries. I'm not saying that's what you were implying, just to make it clear.

[ian+]

I am not quite sure this is entirely true. I have two reasons.

First, we do not know the wages paid by Olmar & Mirta, there is a large variance within an industry and between sectors in any given country.

Second, we do not know the cost of living in Moldova. For instance, in a very stylised exercise, the "average net wage in manufacturing branch with lowest earning" in Moldova is ~€100 p/m (source,p.1), and the "average net pay of factory workers in the clothing sector" in Italy is ~€1100 p/m (source, p.28). Obviously, these salaries are much lower than the national average in each country, but I am trying to compare something similar. Now, adjusting for cost of living in each country, the PPP conversion factor in USD (Purchasing Power Parity, source), for Moldova and Italy are 6.29 and 0.76, respectively.
This implies that the cited monthly salary in Moldova is 629 USD(PPP) and in Italy is 836 USD (PPP). The ratio is 0.75, the 25% difference could be due to productivity or, if we ignore the higher italian skills (implied by tradition), difference could be labour frictions due to bad institutions or as many would say "abuse of the owners".
I know this is a very reductive exercise and the cited figures are low and are average. My point is that if the salary paid by Olmar & Mirta is at least 25% higher than the lowest in the manufacturing industry, it would be similar, in terms of the cost of living, to the average salary of factory workers in Italy. Besides this, we do not know if the workers in the Rick factories in Moldova have better alternatives, what if working there is their first best?

Take some time to study this and the first post by Shucks in this thread.

[unwashed]

Re: Zamb, Yeah you are right, what I ment was it's like it was produced in a sweatshop in a cheap labor country referring to recent trending topic "the True Cost" Bangladesh or China kind of factories.

And there may be people who are much more artisanal in China or Jamaica then Italy. We can measure the average skill level between Italy and China but Italy has shitproducing factories and China has topnotch producing factories and even the best artisan can work and be tired or distracted or stressed and fuck up the output. The point is I'm paying premium prices and expect premium quality.

Seriously, by now I do know I'm paying mostly for brandname and design only with the pieces I buy. Quality is the same as generic mainstream brands. There are no special stitches used or a special thread in the seams. People defend this garbage because designs are great and there is no denying that with all the copycats, but I cannot justify 400 euro sweatshirts with busting seams within the year with normal use. I have sweaters put under a lot more stress from cheap brands 10 years old that still hold up better.

Examples
My last 4 Drkshdw purchases:
Georibbon hoodie -->2 times busted seem at the sleeve
Regular black sweater --> busted seem same places as Georibbon hoodie
slave jacket with leather sleeves (leather feels plastic but ok I can accept this)--> when I inspected the jacket at home after purchase it appeared the complete lined and padded sleeve was not stitched! I had to grab my sewing machine and do it myself
Savage tee -->worn 3 times and no problems yet.

These are in my experience not incidents but a problem. So I try to stay away from Drkshdw now. Besides the leather used on the sleeves of my jacket and the denim used for jeans, fabrics are ok, not outstanding for the prices paid but ok.

Construction is were the problem lies. And this goes for mainline as well. My experience with mainline:
-multiple dropcrotches with busted pocketseams
-Geobaskets with failing zipper that keep unzipping automatically
-Wedges from my gf with 2 times of wear the seam busted. Actually the seam appeared to be glued
- Recent purchased pants was too big but could work due to drawstring, the real reason for return was that one leg was like 5cm longer and wider than the other. And this was no designed asymmetry! These were 1K+ trousers!
-Do I need to mention the dunk/staple problems or pink coloration with the sharkteeth soles or the famous armpit busts people were complaining about a while back.

I mean we are giving this brand too much credit for what we pay for. If half of my purchases have problems, then this cannot be a coincidence for me.

That's why I said I pay for designs which are cool, and fabrics used which are generally great. It's my own stupid fault paying for form over function/quality.

I think both the Moldavia issue needs to be addressed as well as overal quality of both Drkshdw and Mainline. Both are regarding Rick Owens...

So what about those Italy made stooges?

[josecc]

Take some time to study this and the first post by Shucks in this thread.

I think I was not clear enough. I am not saying that 629 USD(PPP) p/m in Moldova is a good salary, what I am saying is that is not extremely far from the Italy levels. Hence, if O&M pays more to its workers, it would be similar to the Italy welfare. My main points, it is naive to compare absolute nominal figures and we do not know how much O&M pays.

In first link you provided the authors says "The average (four person) family in Moldova needs about £312 a month to meet basic needs. Moldovan garment workers take home, including over time, about £95 a month.". I am not sure that the poverty line in Moldova is £312 p/m, but I suppose it is something similar. However, he is comparing individual income (£95) versus family income required. Now, imagine that there are two earners in a 4-members household, suppose that they both work at O&M, the wage that they need to earn in order to meet the cited poverty line is £156 p/m each, which is 64% greater than the cited £95 average. The question is O&M pays 64% more than the average clothing factory? Sound implausible, but again, we do not know, how can we judge that?

Now, going back to the averages in the industry, I know that 629 USD(PPP) p/m in Moldova is a bad salary in real terms. Compared with the US poverty line of 980 USD p/m (1 person, source), it is 35% below, which is a huge gap.
However, what if the garment industry is the best alternative for someone working there? what if O&M is a best alternative than the average factory? One argument is that corporations should pay more, well we know that they will not do that because they are profit maximisers. Does the government should raise the minimum wage? I do not think this will work because many firms will go to another country. This is a very difficult question. One solution in the long run is to change the utility function of the consumers globally, which nowadays is strictly increasing in quantity. If the consumer value not only the final product but the entire production process, then fair conditions/salary will be required to produce. This seems very difficult because it has to be global. For example, suppose O&M pays more than the average, and suppose that due to bad publicity O&M stops producing there, those workers now will have to get a job with a lower salary and they will be worse.

[emochild123]

This message has been deleted by Faust. Reason: rules

[DudleyGray]

The only question here is "What was the incentive for the change in region for production?". I think the answer has been declared several times by several (very well informed) different people over the last few pages.

No, the only real question here is "Are the Rick disciples willing to abandon ship over this?" Because words and intentions don't matter much, the end result is always the same, action is everything.

And to be frank, no. I'm not changing my buying or sartorial habits because of this specifically. Ideally, yes, but in reality, no, because I bought into Rick for so many other more emotionally powerful reasons than ethics, and where would you draw the line? Fabric mills? Ethical farming? Veganism?

Granted, I've changed my buying habits lately for a multitude of reasons, buying less in an effort to do more with less, so it really affects Owenscorp very little. But I'm not going to pretend it's noble, and even if I was going to continue on, I'd simply avoid the Made in Moldova tag, voice my concerns when the topic arises or at the Rick store, or send some random ass email to customer service, basically things that won't amount to shit. And I'll bet most of you Rickheads will do the same for all your talk.

Or maybe I will change if everyone else does, I can be a follower like that. Go ahead, sell your shit, buy into something more respectable or wear your pre/alt-Rick, and post some WAYWT, put your money where your mouth is. Otherwise, it's about as useful as a social media awareness campaign and I don't see the point in discussing it.

[DudleyGray]

Is your literacy level so low that you can't read a term with its tongue-in-cheek intent unless it's so vulgarly put into quotation marks? Are you so illiterate as to miss the point of the post entirely? I'll write it out explicitly for you, although I have little hope that you've got the reading comprehension level to grasp it:

Actions speak louder than words, and the Moldova discussion is a dead horse without it.

[scanner]

As someone that spends a large percentage of my income on Rick for the last decade, I've bought less and less in the last few years and have voiced my opinions to a lot of retailers. I've received jackets with terribly sloppy patterns and returned many defective items. I'm not sure what they do with them, but i'd hope they make a claim with RO and are able to return the product back to them. There was that lame PR story about how Rick saw a sloppy seam on a leather jacket and immediately took it off the person and sent it back.. BS i'm sure, because earlier this year I pre-ordered a jacket at a RO flagship that had the entire pattern and seam all over the place, it honestly looked like it was a knock off. At the end of the season, there it was sitting at 70% off. I used to think Rick was one of the most authentic in the game, but i'm sure he's just a theatrical performer now. He has no problem selling his name on Made in Vietnam sweatshop sneakers priced much higher than his own Made in Italy diffusion so why should anything change?

I just hope stores and buyers (not Barneys, but smaller boutiques) think a bit more outside the box than name and profit and curate their selection better and return stuff that they can tell is not up to the standards of other brands they carry.

[unwashed]

I think most of us here have bought into Rick and it's difficult to just draw the line and say fuck it, sell everything when they have invested a lot of money into their wardrobes. But this doesn't justify Rick's practices and the brand. I think everybody needs to do what feels good for them and can live with in the end. How much value do you attach to materialistic things...

"The things you used to own, now they own you."
Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious. After nine years, you know what I realize?
[Takes a bite of steak] Ignorance is bliss." Cypher, The Matrix

[DudleyGray]

“I did this talk for a fashion school, it was a Skype talk and one of the students asked me, Mr Owens, what do you do about sustainability? And I go, I’m the opposite of sustainability. It’s all about selling more and more clothes that nobody needs. Polluting more rivers with my black dye. Poisoning the planet,” he laughs.

From http://www.anothermag.com/fashion-be...nd-adolescence

[stemcell]

^That quote is pretty amazing, and brings me to the point I've been wanting to make for a few pages now.

SO JUST A THOUGHT. Maybe Rick knows most of this and just doesn't care? Should we expect different? I think somewhere along the way we let his soft voice and beautiful way of explaining his runway shows give us a skewed expectation— Whoever said Rick was meant to be this responsible nice angel of the fashion world? His last campaign video showed him getting fucked by a horse and decapitating it with a chainsaw. He is known for building rock crystal and marble toilets. He has statues of himself pissing on himself. All things I love, but really, what makes us think that his dark image is required to come with some perfect politically correct sustainability?

And isn't it kind of SILLY for us to be getting THAT caught up in it? Regardless of the conditions in moldovan factories, there are infinitely worse and more depraved things going on in the world— certainly by bigger brands with bigger depraved factories, but even more so outside the fashion world. FURTHER MORE, here we are arguing about where his $3-6k jackets are made and what factory wages are like— so let me understand, you want to sleep well knowing where your $5k jacket came from? If it is that much of an issue, why not spend $5k on a trip to one of these countries and get your hands dirty with some charity work on the ground. Is that insane to ask? I mean I think we are fooling ourselves. I love all of this as much as the next one of you, but where do we get off thinking we can justify all this nonsense just because it's made somewhere nice. His furniture and HUN pieces can reach the $100k's and so what? It's crafted in italy or wherever? Millions of people are dying and starving— I don't think it is too hard to understand that your $80k not spent on a mink blanket could go a long way in improving someone's life. So that's at least part of my thought. Quality is a number one concern because it is direct. Moldova should be a concern ideally, but we're treading the line of hypocrisy getting too upset about it. I wish he didn't produce there obviously. I wish factory conditions were all decent across the board, obviously. But you know, we have to be realistic. And maybe our view of Rick was getting a little unrealistic. He does, in theory, represent something a little evil, no? I'll always think of him as sort of a beautiful, wonderful, aspirational thing— but at the same time, I think OWENSCORP— and Rick's vision in its totality— could eaisly include slaves and destruction— I think if given free reign, he'd be more along the lines of a beautiful Egyptian tyrant, rather than some ecological and politically correct saint that's here to save the world. It's fashion. It's guaranteed to be egotistical, exclusive and can basically not exist without environmental costs. Don't forget that none of this is necessary. None of it. Just a thought. Curious to see if this is just written off as offensive or ignorant, but I know at least some of you will know what I'm saying is true.

[bukka]

^That quote is pretty amazing, and brings me to the point I've been wanting to make for a few pages now.

SO JUST A THOUGHT. Maybe Rick knows most of this and just doesn't care? Should I expect different? I think somewhere along the way I let his soft voice and beautiful way of explaining his runway shows give me a skewed expectation— Whoever said Rick was meant to be this responsible nice angel of the fashion world? His last campaign video showed him getting fucked by a horse and decapitating it with a chainsaw. He is known for building rock crystal and marble toilets. He has statues of himself pissing on himself. All things I love, but really, what makes me think that his dark image is required to come with some perfect politically correct sustainability?

And isn't it kind of SILLY for me to be getting THAT caught up in it? Regardless of the conditions in moldovan factories, there are infinitely worse and more depraved things going on in the world— certainly by bigger brands with bigger depraved factories, but even more so outside the fashion world. FURTHER MORE, here we are arguing about where his $3-6k jackets are made and what factory wages are like— so let me understand, you want to sleep well knowing where your $5k jacket came from? If it is that much of an issue, why not spend $5k on a trip to one of these countries and get your hands dirty with some charity work on the ground. Is that insane to ask? I mean I think I am fooling myself. I love all of this as much as the next one of you, but where do I get off thinking I can justify all this nonsense just because it's made somewhere nice. His furniture and HUN pieces can reach the $100k's and so what? It's crafted in italy or wherever? Millions of people are dying and starving— I don't think it is too hard to understand that my $80k not spent on a mink blanket could go a long way in improving someone's life. So that's at least part of my thought. Quality is a number one concern because it is direct. Moldova should be a concern ideally, but I'm treading the line of hypocrisy getting too upset about it. I wish he didn't produce there obviously. I wish factory conditions were all decent across the board, obviously. But you know, I have to be realistic. And maybe my view of Rick was getting a little unrealistic. He does, in theory, represent something a little evil, no? I'll always think of him as sort of a beautiful, wonderful, aspirational thing— but at the same time, I think OWENSCORP— and Rick's vision in its totality— could eaisly include slaves and destruction— I think if given free reign, he'd be more along the lines of a beautiful Egyptian tyrant, rather than some ecological and politically correct saint that's here to save the world. It's fashion. It's guaranteed to be egotistical, exclusive and can basically not exist without environmental costs. Don't forget that none of this is necessary. None of it. Just a thought. Curious to see if this is just written off as offensive or ignorant, but I know at least some of you will know what I'm saying is true.

Sorry, I couldn't help but correct this as it was highly irritating to see myself included in your speech. There's too many points to address. Maybe you should go read GBS thread, it might change your opinion on the "silliness"of this conversation.