Brand, the very word has a tawdry air to it, originating from the inhuman practice of branding livestock to identify or distinguish them or as a tangible claim of ownership. [ as a Verb, Brand means - to Mark (an animal, formerly a criminal or slave) with a branding iron ]
I safely assume and begin with the premise that neither me nor you would like to be owned by anyone, in the context I find it quite preposterous to sport any apparel that screams brands. I have serious prejudice against people who do so. And it's not the quiet, blending ones that sneakily make their way into the design, that count. What the hell, sometimes they even compliment the design and may distinguish the product too. I'm not advocating custom-creation but it's the ginormous logos that irk me. I wouldn't half mind wearing one if their monogram was as beautiful as this. But sadly most multinational apparel brands use this as their free ad space, to propagate and popularise themselves. Brands will have such t-shirts/pull-overs/sweat-shirts in every imaginable colour and what's worse is most of them will give you flowery discounts on these agents of propaganda. These guys will proudly sponsor our favourite sports and sport teams and literally buy our sporting legends/icons to get their message across. Damned be such sporting legends.
Conventionally it is a single colour piece of cloth with the gloating gaudy bastard, shining and smiling at everyone bang in the centre. I like single colour garments sometimes where the more considerable brands camouflage their identity and limit them to the right hand top or even better at the bottom perhaps unassumingly horizontal. But in other cases, where you pick out an apparel smitten by the design on the front (Hi i am a cool-looking grungy retro graphic...) and as soon as you turn it over to see if the design continues - there it is unabashedly grinning as if it were a corporate goodbye (...and don't forget to remember me, ever).
Logically they should be paying you to wear these and not the other way round. Atleast, that very original and needy guy who had come up with the human adspace concept is getting paid to put things on his forehead and elsewhere. And most stores / exclusive showrooms will parade their paid staff resplendent in the largest and most vulgar piece they've ever produced. But I fail to understand why would any normal person would pay to wear these. Let alone wear it, they flaunt it as if it were a scar from the world wars or a prison tattoo from the deadliest ghetto is erstwhile Russia or a means of getting socially accepted and lauded. Little kids may be excused as they don't know any better or it's their parents who force the seeds of this awful capitalist propaganda down their innocent gullets. These little dudes are in the making of potential spokespersons for egotist brands. We must collectively resolve not to further their cause and do our bit to put an end to their devious plan of world subjugation. We shall spread the word and make sporting brands uncool. We shall live and work as free beings.
TO DO Here's what you do if there are a few skeletons in the cupboard (gifts / hugely discounted stuff), or if you find one around or snatch one from someone :
1. Donate & Earn goodwill There's absolutely no dearth of places you could donate to - NGO's, orphanages, blind schools, flood/earthquake relief etc and may be you shall redeem yourself. Donate only after extracting a promise that they'd wear it inside out.
2. Soak the garment in red Chicken Korma gravy for about 24 hrs and then brandish it in front of huge, leashed, killer-looking sniffer dogs like a matador. Carefully pack in front of the leashed beasts and address it to the company headqurters, labelled in humongous font size, in the probability that the dogs are literate. Courier the package and after having placed yourself in a secure spot cut the fuckin leash off.
3. Carefully cut out the ugly part/s to expose more skin to attract members of the opposite sex.
4. Wear as night clothes (only after turning off the lights)
5. Wear on Holi. (Applicable in India) Yeah!
6. Dye !
3 comments:
ur post echoes what naomi klein says in her book 'no logo', where she talks about people being converted to walking billboards for advertisements when they sport stuff with such ginormous logos.
now that u've said all this, do you know any place where you can get unbranded, no-logo t-shirts and shoes? which are of good quality too?
nope. plain tees yes but not great quality. and probably the only way to go about wearing 'clean' shoes is to wear formal shoes/leather. but like i said i don't mind the less obtrusive stuff myself.
incidentally adbusters did come out with the blackspot sneaker which is earth-friendly, anti-sweatshop and cruelty-free (using ethical manufacturing processes and labour).
You could buy one here:
the unobtrusive stuff is something i don't mind too.
the blackspot sneakers also came under a lot of fire, cos it was turning out to be a "brand" in itself... but, i guess that is expected.
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