Brand Signal

Denim is a durable, form-fitting fabric which, depending on its exact manufacturing process, can take on a variety of hues and textures, which may or may not add to its physical strength or functional options, but can be used to signal quality, and more often, wearer’s status or knowledge. Design facilities can imbue shirts with additional buttons or pockets for practicality, cargo shorts with zip-off bottoms for pant-morphing abilities, or knit hats equipped with hidden seams for stashing items or substances discreetly. Beyond the immediate benefits of clothing, which have been apparent since nearly 400,000 years ago when proto-humans first slapped animal hides together over themselves, clothing has since been used to indicate hierarchical status or in-group relation, for example Roman-era royal purple made from thousands upon thousands of crushed snails to form a valuable dye, or sports jerseys. As colors and material technological innovations have advanced, the indicators of status have changed as well to include types of clothing worn, both in form and maker. Within the last 25 years, clothing has morphed to adhere to the manufacturers and developers ideologies as well. Brands have arisen as institutions used for social signalling well beyond the physical attributions of their garmenture. And while price is one such value proposition, the professed value-system of the brands and manufacturers also are a part of the proposition, reflecting the wearer’s ethos and social equity. When acknowledging the direct material contribution that one’s status gives to their existence, it can be inferred that clothing, and the brand-based connotations of its existence, are on par with more tangible aspects of an item. This pertains to other objects as well beyond clothing and fashion.

Branding as a term stems from Middle English, meaning to mark with a hot iron, as humans have done for millenia to not only mark livestock, but also themselves, for religious and social reasons. Cattle branding was a way to determine ownership, and as time progressed, a method by which one could infer quality about products made from the branded livestock and their origins. As time progressed, branding as a definition began to include any item inscribed with a maker’s mark. From olive oil to textiles to furniture, branding began to validate articles origins, for legal (see taxation) purposes, and satisfaction about queries of origin and quality. As technological advancements progressed, more competitors entered marketplaces, and branding began to hold far greater significance for consumers, validating  that food stuffs had been FDA approved, that cotton had been responsibly harvested, and that Eames Chairs had been made in the 60’s. Of course, brands have always faced the difficulty of illegitimate replicas, fakes, and dupes. Some are reflective as far as iconography, shapes and coloration, parodying their real counterparts, however, many false idols have come to be manufactured in similar, or even in the exact same factories, albeit with slight differences which account for the capacity in reduced quality or in-house, under-the-table selling. The internet is rife with these items, and in New York City, the sidewalks of Chinatown and Lower Manhattan general are littered with blankets hosting a true menagerie of quality-made, but still fake branded items. Although this particular version of quackery is relatively modern in its ubiquity and social acceptance, producing forgeries has always been a constant business. And if many of these instances are nearly indisputable from their real progenitors, one needs to ask if brands have the justification to exercise higher costs for minimal tangible differentiation. Even purchasing from a smaller brand is still a choice of brand which is a confluence of personal aesthetic, moral, and economic decisions.

To focus on clothing as the easiest and most navigable example of branding power at work, and to begin with the understanding that clothing began with purely utilitarian purposes, it is easy to acknowledge the efforts made in self-decoration began as self-expression done on very individual terms and on very small scales. Clothing transitioned from purely practical protection to indicators of belonging within groups and status among that group based on available materials. As garments were locally fashioned, even simply within households, this capacity to have unique garments was incredibly easy, making social indicators immediate at a glance. As clothing has detached from locally made tradesmen to massive international conglomerates, the universal quality of clothing has been raised, or at least the conformity of clothing has increased. Nearly 60% of all clothing and textiles are made in Asia thus limiting the number of manufacturers and mass market differentiation factors. This limitation on the physical variances and the efficiency of garments in their practical design has pushed the truly identifying factors into the abstract associations that we make based on the label.