Label Under Construction (Luca Laurini)

[Faust]

Re: Label Under Construction



[quote user="AKA*NYC"]At this point it comes down to discerningly supporting your favorite designer or two with every purchase premeditated as far in advance as possible. Fun is no longer part of the equation as just about every purchase hurts.[/quote]

Good point. But what if you are starting to feel that your favorite designer is insulting you with these prices? Or should one not have such a feeling?

[philip nod]

Re: Label Under Construction



when you cant afford favorite designer does he stop being your favorite designer?

i think the best deal of the fall is the julius scarf that transforms into whatever you want it to. at 380 i think it feels like a downright steal.

[AKA*NYC]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="Faust"]

But what if you are starting to feel that your favorite designer is insulting you with these prices? Or should one not have such a feeling?

[/quote]

Hmmm...the onus is on you to think of new and creative ways to rationalize the purchase.

[AKA*NYC]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="philip nod"]

when you cant afford favorite designer does he stop being your favorite designer?

i think the best deal of the fall is the julius scarf that transforms into whatever you want it to. at 380 i think it feels like a downright steal.

[/quote]

I'm with you on that one. Hahaha.

[Faust]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="philip nod"]

when you cant afford favorite designer does he stop being your favorite designer?

i think the best deal of the fall is the julius scarf that transforms into whatever you want it to. at 380 i think it feels like a downright steal.

[/quote]

absolutely not. that's not what i was saying. but it can be alienating.

[lowrey]

Re: Label Under Construction

I wonder what the european retail for one of those basic knits is right now..

I havent been to any stores that would've had new stock yet so dont know, but would be interesting to see how much of it is because of currency, how much because of US price level changesand how much differencethat leavesin the local retail price, whether it still costs the same here.

[Chinorlz]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="merz"]

i think at times like these, some vendors realise that those affected by the recent economic downturn aren't their primary customer base aren't likely to make much of a $500 price hike from season to season. if your customers are willing to pay it, there's no reason not to charge.

same reason a bag retailing for 46k yen in japan is imported to cost $1100.
people buying luxury items aren't the sort to complain about their affordability.

[/quote]

This is a very very good point Merz. Are you referring to the Julius bag that A now carries?

The problem arises when many of us on the forum love these brands because of what the designers are creating and what their overall vision is, yet the prices just keep rising and rising every season (disproportionate to inflation and import fees) thus pricing us out. That says a lot too because the average SZer definitely has a very high threshold for what is considered a reasonable amount to spend on a single item.

but for every SZ baller, theres an even bigger baller out there and as LUC/CCP/et al aren't really looking to expand their production, it's not too difficult to retain that small consumer group size. If 10 of us can't buy as many pieces anymore, there are 15 new uberballers that read the NYT article on Atelier that can.

As much as the clothes are art and appreciable at a distance, there is a level of satisfaction and almost a sort of need to own it to fully appreciate it. Different from other artistic media forms, clothing are much more of a consumable and just seeing photos or seeing it in the stores just doesn't cut it. Full appreciation requires wearing/owning at least in my mind and once we get used to purchasing these lines it's downright dismaying to see something as physically intangible as a higher set of numbers written on the tag keeping me from taking it home.

It would be a different story if the clothes were always out of my price range, but it used to not be such a big deal to buy at full retail compared to what it has been like these last two seasons. What justifies the jump in price of LUC knits from $300-400sh to nearly $1000 more in just a few years? This time last year I picked up two LUC pieces while in Germany for about $485-550 each. That's like a perpetual 50% off sale now!

Reiterating what Faust has mentioned several times... recently, looking at price tags, I'm downright relieved that purchasing many of these items at full retail is beyond consideration. I just hang back and wait until later, or like AKA mentioned, check things out well beforehand season-wise and write down the heavily edited list of what I'm considering and then strike at those when they hit. After that, just see what hits the secondhand market.

[ddohnggo]

Re: Label Under Construction



were last f/w cashmere around 900, hovering around 1k?

however in the end, with the rising costs everywhere, people have to be a lot smarter with how/what they buy.

[maldoror]

Re: Label Under Construction

I understand what Merz is saying here and I'd imagine that everyone else here does too. however, there's a difference between a retailer hiking up the cost of goods (which is always what I assumed was going on with the 1 yen --> 2 dollar thing) and the designer himself squeezing every last cent out of his fan base.

really though, my personal issue has to do as much with dissollusionment as anything else. while I expect this sort of thing from gucci, prada, LV and the other heidi fleiss monogram peddlers of high fashion, for whom illogically high pricing is a foundational tenet of the branding (and a large part of the brand's appeal through the misnomeric concept of "exclusivity"), I expect something more from the particula sort of brand-glue which bind SZ together.

of course CCP and, specifically, LUC (to keep this topic on-topic) are expensive, and always have been. and of course, no matter how much we want to justify the cost with appeal to innovation, special treatments and techniques, luxury materials, etc. the high prices will still, ultimately, be just that. however, there's a difference between running a successful business/making a profit, and milking your customers for all they're worth. charging almost twice as much one season later for the same product crosses that line. as things continue to escalate, people are being priced out. the customer demographic itself is changing along with the price.

as much as I hate to admit it, the dissilusionment here has to do with image as much as anything else. I've always seen the owner/designers of these labels as something more than business men, not artists per se, but surely artisans. to my mind, they are more in line with the hermetic indigo dying expert operating out of the shadowed corner of some dusty alleyway than domenico del sole furiously humping a stack of dollar bills in a private jet while tom ford rubs one out on the sidelines. I am starting to realize now that this is not only idealistic, but naive. Amadei was raising a red flag which I wanted to regard as an exception, but that's becoming harder to do.

there is a certain inauthenticity which has always been at the core of these products. the whole idea of paying extra for distressed leather, wrinkled fabrics, madly chasing the flickering image of the billion dollar bum. however, there was always the quality and the artistry to at least partially back it up, and, as expensive as things were, they were always save up-able, capable of being prioritized into attainability. if things continue the way they are going this will no longer be the case.

surely I'm being overly dramatic here, but it's sad to think that soon enough you won't be able to spell LUC without MBA.

[Chinorlz]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="maldoror"]I understand what Merz is saying here and I'd imagine that everyone else here does too. however, there's a difference between a retailer hiking up the cost of goods (which is always what I assumed was going on with the 1 yen --> 2 dollar thing) and the designer himself squeezing every last cent out of his fan base.

really though, my personal issue has to do as much with dissollusionment as anything else. while I expect this sort of thing from gucci, prada, LV and the other heidi fleiss monogram peddlers of high fashion, for whom illogically high pricing is a foundational tenet of the branding (and a large part of the brand's appeal through the misnomeric concept of "exclusivity"), I expect something more from the particula sort of brand-glue which bind SZ together.

of course CCP and, specifically, LUC (to keep this topic on-topic) are expensive, and always have been. and of course, no matter how much we want to justify the cost with appeal to innovation, special treatments and techniques, luxury materials, etc. the high prices will still, ultimately, be just that. however, there's a difference between running a successful business/making a profit, and milking your customers for all they're worth. charging almost twice as much one season later for the same product crosses that line. as things continue to escalate, people are being priced out. the customer demographic itself is changing along with the price.

as much as I hate to admit it, the dissilusionment here has to do with image as much as anything else. I've always seen the owner/designers of these labels as something more than business men, not artists per se, but surely artisans. to my mind, they are more in line with the hermetic indigo dying expert operating out of the shadowed corner of some dusty alleyway than domenico del sole furiously humping a stack of dollar bills in a private jet while tom ford rubs one out on the sidelines. I am starting to realize now that this is not only idealistic, but naive. Amadei was raising a red flag which I wanted to regard as an exception, but that's becoming harder to do.

there is a certain inauthenticity which has always been at the core of these products. the whole idea of paying extra for distressed leather, wrinkled fabrics, madly chasing the flickering image of the billion dollar bum. however, there was always the quality and the artistry to at least partially back it up, and, as expensive as things were, they were always save up-able, capable of being prioritized into attainability. if things continue the way they are going this will no longer be the case.

surely I'm being overly dramatic here, but it's sad to think that soon enough you won't be able to spell LUC without MBA.

[/quote]

Well written Maldoror, I think in many of these instances though it's a combination of the retailers and the designers marking up items. This is indicated both by the stateside rising costs of items and then seeing them rising even on Lazzari's page. You pay for exclusivity... you always do, but there's always that limit you know? I'm getting more and more dismayed each season to see fewer of us being able to more freely purchase LUC/CCP/CDiem items.

But this "sticker shock" discussion occurs every time the new eagle lands and people give the rundown [73]

We'll just sigh, complain, readjust our outlook and pricing threshold and get on with it.

[maldoror]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="Chinorlz"]

You pay for exclusivity... you always do, but there's always that limit you know?

[/quote]

For sure, and this is kind of the root of the conundrum for me. Where do you draw the line, how much are you willing to sacrifice, when does once in a while become a habit become an addiction, etc.

[BECOMING-INTENSE]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="maldoror"]

as much as I hate to admit it, the disillusionment here has to do with image as much as anything else. I've always seen the owner/designers of these labels as something more than business men, not artists per se, but surely artisans. to my mind, they are more in line with the hermetic indigo dying expert operating out of the shadowed corner of some dusty alleyway than domenico del sole furiously humping a stack of dollar bills in a private jet while tom ford rubs one out on the sidelines. I am starting to realize now that this is not only idealistic, but naive. Amadei was raising a red flag which I wanted to regard as an exception, but that's becoming harder to do.

[/quote]

If I didn't somewhat shared your view here, I would have a hard time, justifying these prices, altogether.

I think there has to be drawn a line between an economy of intensification with respect to change rather than an economy of production with respect to investment. For whereas labour mediates between distributions of commodities, products, and wealth as fixed states or end products of work, the work of art mediates between affective and dynamic excitations. This is the only way I can justify these pricing, that there has to be something that goes beyond purely functional clothing.

Edit: I think it would be interesting to see a break down of what causes these price eruption, what part the designer, the shops, the financial state of our society, the price deviations between contries, transport, etc. plays in these matters.

[Faust]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="maldoror"]I understand what Merz is saying here and I'd imagine that everyone else here does too. however, there's a difference between a retailer hiking up the cost of goods (which is always what I assumed was going on with the 1 yen --> 2 dollar thing) and the designer himself squeezing every last cent out of his fan base.

really though, my personal issue has to do as much with dissollusionment as anything else. while I expect this sort of thing from gucci, prada, LV and the other heidi fleiss monogram peddlers of high fashion, for whom illogically high pricing is a foundational tenet of the branding (and a large part of the brand's appeal through the misnomeric concept of "exclusivity"), I expect something more from the particula sort of brand-glue which bind SZ together.

of course CCP and, specifically, LUC (to keep this topic on-topic) are expensive, and always have been. and of course, no matter how much we want to justify the cost with appeal to innovation, special treatments and techniques, luxury materials, etc. the high prices will still, ultimately, be just that. however, there's a difference between running a successful business/making a profit, and milking your customers for all they're worth. charging almost twice as much one season later for the same product crosses that line. as things continue to escalate, people are being priced out. the customer demographic itself is changing along with the price.

as much as I hate to admit it, the dissilusionment here has to do with image as much as anything else. I've always seen the owner/designers of these labels as something more than business men, not artists per se, but surely artisans. to my mind, they are more in line with the hermetic indigo dying expert operating out of the shadowed corner of some dusty alleyway than domenico del sole furiously humping a stack of dollar bills in a private jet while tom ford rubs one out on the sidelines. I am starting to realize now that this is not only idealistic, but naive. Amadei was raising a red flag which I wanted to regard as an exception, but that's becoming harder to do.

there is a certain inauthenticity which has always been at the core of these products. the whole idea of paying extra for distressed leather, wrinkled fabrics, madly chasing the flickering image of the billion dollar bum. however, there was always the quality and the artistry to at least partially back it up, and, as expensive as things were, they were always save up-able, capable of being prioritized into attainability. if things continue the way they are going this will no longer be the case.

surely I'm being overly dramatic here, but it's sad to think that soon enough you won't be able to spell LUC without MBA.

[/quote]

AMEN. Couldn't have said it better myself. [Y]

[Faust]

Re: Label Under Construction

[quote user="BECOMING-INTENSE"][quote user="maldoror"]

as much as I hate to admit it, the disillusionment here has to do with image as much as anything else. I've always seen the owner/designers of these labels as something more than business men, not artists per se, but surely artisans. to my mind, they are more in line with the hermetic indigo dying expert operating out of the shadowed corner of some dusty alleyway than domenico del sole furiously humping a stack of dollar bills in a private jet while tom ford rubs one out on the sidelines. I am starting to realize now that this is not only idealistic, but naive. Amadei was raising a red flag which I wanted to regard as an exception, but that's becoming harder to do.

[/quote]

If I didn't somewhat shared your view here, I would have a hard time, justifying these prices, altogether.

I think there has to be drawn a line between an economy of intensification with respect to change rather than an economy of production with respect to investment. For whereas labour mediates between distributions of commodities, products, and wealth as fixed states or end products of work, the work of art mediates between affective and dynamic excitations. This is the only way I can justify these pricing, that there has to be something that goes beyond purely functional clothing.

[/quote]

To be sure - only at the end you still have a finite amount of money, and unfortunately the amount of appreciation one has does not always have bearing on one's purchasing power... and the reverse. And if we talk about integrity, which surely must figure in affective excitations somewhere - we would presume that Poell would be more happy if I wore his clothes rather than Rio Ferdinand or Brad Pitt. Well, maybe it's good in a way and will turn away potential customers and will bring balance to the force in the end.

[philip nod]

Re: Label Under Construction

i blame the high prices on the SZ