Margiela x H&M ???

[christianef]

(b) "But for hardcore fans, who ordinarily cannot afford the expensive catwalk creations, this is their chance to own a slice of their chosen designer: Eleonora Sacco, 27, who had queued since 5am, has admired the brand over the past decade. She bought a black dress, a metallic clutch and bracelet, all for around £130"

Fair enough for Eleonora I say.

still, what do these hardcore fans do. wasnt eternal a waiter. i know kids who travel around working in call centres and own handfuls of authentic designer shit. as mentioned before you can get the real stuff on ebay and y**x or yahooj at an almost better price point. this bitch is 27 if you're such a fucking hard core fan i dont know god forbid seek employment, work a few extra hours and save the fuck up. you're not putting a mortgage on a house or buying an audi, here. i dont understand why a hardcore fan would want to settle for a shitty fast fashion knock-off if youre such a fan of the brand wouldnt u wanto pay a little extra to support the actual brand and not succumb to the dumb store finger fucking it in the asshole and everything it stood for. fair enough.

[bxc]

i dont understand why a hardcore fan would want to settle for a shitty fast fashion knock-off if youre such a fan of the brand wouldnt u wanto pay a little extra to support the actual brand and not succumb to the dumb store finger fucking it in the asshole and everything it stood for.

this argument doesn't really work well here for obvious reasons..

also maybe eleanor isn't in the financial situation to find/purchase the pieces she wants because of reasons other than her own personal motivation for money?

[christianef]

any hardcore fan of margiela would spit on this imaginary collaboration. this bitch is a hoe. fuck her financial situation she had a decade to sort it out.

[malevich]

read in some french article today "MMM x H&M comme M(auvais) M(ass) M(arketing) x H&M" which translates as BAD MASS MARKETING by H&M!!! Sounds like official internationally hugely disapproved collab between Fashion and mass market clothing!!! It is not that obvious to merge the two terms together and make everyone swallow it!!!
But on the other hand what do we expect, its been since the beginning of times the dumb sheep loudly gather in herds, while lonely eagles flit high in the sky!!!

[Faust]

this argument doesn't really work well here for obvious reasons..

also maybe eleanor isn't in the financial situation to find/purchase the pieces she wants because of reasons other than her own personal motivation for money?

I'd like to point out to all those self-content European students who love to gripe about elitism while living in gentrified neighborhoods and brunching every weekend how privileged they are compared to people who work in those Chinese factories that produce their affordable "designer" clothes that they finally are able to get their hands on.

[Fuuma]

Hahahaha, poor and middle-class people (same thing really) are so stupid and vulgar, can't even eat MMMcake without putting some H&M on top.

[Pumpfish]

I'm seeing a whole heep of snobbery here. Some dressed up in ethics arguments, some dressed as authenticity arguments, some as sentimentality for something long gone.

From an ethical sense, ain't nothing special about this or any collab. The ethics of fashion and clothing is all about production and exploitation. Economic fuckers and fuckees. It is much wider than this venture.

Authenticity? At least the owner gets a royalty. Better than a naked rip which is usual in this sector.

Sentiment. Well it is difficult to challenge deep affection. But MMM was long past originality when he sold on to Renzo. The most inventive part in recent years was the branding and merchandising.

[Rosenrot]

I'm seeing a whole heep of snobbery here. Some dressed up in ethics arguments, some dressed as authenticity arguments, some as sentimentality for something long gone.

Amen. Just as there is a bandwagon of hype, there is another one of hate.

[BSR]

I can't make out if your serious or not Fuuma.

that's fuuma's concept, basically. like ccp's is "we can't make out if it fits or not"

[mona13]

Now searching on ebay for old season Margiela will never be the same. The flooding has started.

Agreed - I deleted my saved 'Margiela' search today, as I was sick of looking at H&M pieces...

[Faust]

Ok, Eternal, American too. Students, because that's where the "elitism" comments tend to come from.

And for the rest of you, you obviously missed the plot if you think my article is elitist.

[Pumpfish]

Rilu,

It's the attitude towards the punters which is snobbish. That's what I was calling out.

[LEB]

...how privileged they are compared to people who work in those Chinese factories that produce their affordable "designer" clothes that they finally are able to get their hands on.

I took a look at the collection on saturday in Munich. Two things that surprised me:

1. The collection is very expensive and 'better'-made than the usual H&M crap.

2. Some of the pieces are made in Europe. (Heels were made in Portugal)

[several_girls]

I'm seeing a whole heep of snobbery here. Some dressed up in ethics arguments, some dressed as authenticity arguments, some as sentimentality for something long gone.

From an ethical sense, ain't nothing special about this or any collab. The ethics of fashion and clothing is all about production and exploitation. Economic fuckers and fuckees. It is much wider than this venture.

Authenticity? At least the owner gets a royalty. Better than a naked rip which is usual in this sector.

Sentiment. Well it is difficult to challenge deep affection. But MMM was long past originality when he sold on to Renzo. The most inventive part in recent years was the branding and merchandising.

Amen. Just as there is a bandwagon of hype, there is another one of hate.

I'm trying to disentangle this conversation. This all depends on the object of critique, no?

Eugene's article does not condescend to people as blameworthy moral agents, it is critical of a business practice and the interpretation of this business practice. Fuuma, on the other hand, is being directly snobbish toward particular people.

From an ethical standpoint, I think Eugene has identified something actually novel about collaborations. Namely, they perform intellectual work for the consumer. In this sense, you can see how the collaboration is actually antithetical to this position of "democratizing fashion." Because what is deemed desirable is no longer determined by a person, but by H&M. It is very top-down; aesthetic sensibility is dictated by fast-fashion companies. Okay, when we're talking about MMM its not simply aesthetic, but that issue is addressed in another thread I imagine.

edit: Hah. As a follow up, just imagine. Already tired from waiting in line, customers enter the building on opening day for the collab and now passive aggressively fight over and grab what they can. The SAs are swamped. Managers have been a bundle of nerves since learning the day this would happen, and if they had pedometers they'd probably be clocking extra mileage. Customers also file out the store already thinking of what kind of mark up they will put on their items for ebay. This whole time, two people have been lounging against the walls just surveying the scene. One turns to the other and says, "This is what democracy looks like."

[nellytheelephant]

I could be wrong but a lot of the negativity about this seems to be stored up snobbery and angst.

A lot of that comes from the value we put in stuff and the value of stuff, like MMM, is inextricably linked to how expensive and rare it is.

It's fine for places like H&M to do this because its only for pretend anyway. MMM hasn't occupied the cutting edge in any sense for some time so in reality this is turning nothing on its head but our perceived value of the brand.

By contrast, let's imagine Ford started turning out Astin Martin DB9's on their production line instead of Mondeos. The poor could now afford a car previously only bought by the rich (who knew they were rich but thought they alone had the taste to appreciate the things only they could afford, like a DB9). Now that would be something.

H&M/MMM is simply a cleverly watered-down version. This move shouldn't devalue the MMM brand too much whilst allowing H&M to capitalise on the MMM brand and make a tidy bit of mark-up at levels they're normally unused to.

It would be infinitely more interesting if this could happen more often and to the extreme. In cars as per the Ford and Astin Martin example and in clothing and clothing I really care about...

If the clothing factories of Leeds and Manchester spontaneously reopened and Paul Harnden was able to harness a workforce capable of producing a 10000 jackets per season instead of 100 or CCP moved production to some specialist clothing ninjas in China and special orders took a week instead of a year and cost proportionally less also.

Now that would give us something proper to worry about...