Sometimes the luxury end of the fashion industry floors me with how out of touch it can be with those of us who live what I would term "ordinary lives." I live a fairly ordinary life. In my ordinary life, I need a pair of shorts to run around in on holiday. And what better than a pair in khaki canvas, a bit like the ones above. Here they are again in detail:
This is the bit of the post in which I become indignant, self righteous and shocked, for these shorts by Balmain cost £1,105 on Net-a-Porter. Even typing in the figure makes me ripple with laughter. £1,105!!!! Hahaha. My friend Iqua showed them to me. I can see her now shaking her head at the ridiculousness of it. I quite agree. Between us we have clocked up some 30 years in this business and we have never seen such a bonkersly overpriced garment. This is inverse Balmainia. The people who run the label have clearly lost their grip on even the outer fringes of the real world.
WHY does this pair of shorts cost £1,105? What about the production of them makes them so expensive? Their cost price must surely be no more than £30-40. To my eyes nothing can justify the cost, except perhaps that somewhere an Oligarch's status-obsessed wife is willing to pay £1,105 for them because in her world Balmain is cool. If that is the case, then we are talking exploitation. Whatever way you look at it, it's wrongheaded.
There are pairs almost identical to these shorts in TopShop and New Look (it took two minutes to find them online). Here is the New Look pair at £10.
There is a difference between the two, but they are not £1,095 different.
The New Look ones can be purchased here.
Images: Net a Porter and New Look
Balmain is ridiculously overpriced, a slashed army shirt is about 1000 quid.... That is just ridiculous, I can cut holes in a green shirt myself and it will cost me maybe 5 quid for the shirt, and I already own a pair of scissors... It is just ridiculous, and quite infuriating, that they think they can actually charge people that amount of money!
ReplyDeleteSo glad to see that actually written down. Sometimes when I see prices like I think I'm missing something...maybe the shorts were made my fairy princesses, or with wool from a goat 20,000 metres above sea level. But no, all I'm missing is that someone has the gall to make them and times the price by 100.
ReplyDeleteLove your blog (and Grazia, of course).
Bonkers but believable that some Oligarch status obsessive wife would buy them. I'd like to think pixies sewed them under the moonlight but given the Elves and the Shoemaker story is fiction then the pricing strategy is ridiculous and the biggest mark up ever.
ReplyDeleteHilarious!
ReplyDeleteI honestly can't believe these words are coming froma fashion editor. I thought you guys were immune to monetary figures!
Great post.
xx
you are not alone!!!! did you peep the sold out 1k euro cotton tee
ReplyDeletehttp://thecookie-jar.blogspot.com/2010/04/whats-more-insulting.html
yah. there will always be some nutcase who buys this stuff. or why else is balmain so often *sold out* at net-a-porter. completely crazy.
ReplyDeleteWow, this is insane! I think I'm in the wrong business. I'm gonna start flogging £30 items of clothing for £1000 plus - any takers?
ReplyDeleteHa ha. Dry clean only. Of course.
ReplyDeleteTouche!
ReplyDeleteI also ran a blog post about the absurdities of Balmain's pricing. I was in that new boutique in Paris, L'Eclaireur with my grandma. You know, trying to get her to understand my world a little better when we finally got to the Balmain section and picked up the £1,370 khaki cotton tee shirt with holes that resembled cigarette burns. Needless to say she walked out.
http://layersandswathes.com/
I love how Balmain thinks that a tiny piece of fabric with their name on it is worth over 1000 dollars inside a 10 dollar t-shirt.
ReplyDelete