The Tail Wagging The Dog...

... another of my pet peeves...

Any company or brand expecting you to pay to wear their logos...

Tell me again - why should I do that?

Ought it not to be the other way around, where you pay me to wear, carry, drive your products - seeing I'm a walking advertisement for you???

It used to bug my children that I wouldn't buy branded, labelled products...

They felt left out, when they compared themselves to their peers...

I did occasionally succumb, but to the smallest degree possible...

When my daughters were in primary school, Benetton and Esprit entered the New Zealand clothing market...

My daughters went to a suburban school that had a high socio-economic population and most of their friends were wearing both brands within a matter of weeks of their launch in the country...

Knowing how much peer pressure around body image and popularity affected young girls especially, I gave both girls socks with the Benetton and Esprit brands woven into the tops...

They were so happy; they felt like they were part of the 'in crowd', normal, equals, accepted...

It was a small thing to do to make life a little easier for daughters who have a mother who doesn't fit the mould...

And I had a hard time giving in to the programming, on even that scale...

And this doesn't even address the issues relating to slave labour being employed in Third World countries to make these products and the unholy profits manufacturers are making on the backs of this exploitation...

My mother worked for most of her life in the clothing industry.  I saw how hard she worked and how little she was paid, even in a western factory.   I know the cost of the materials, of marketing and distribution etc...

Why on earth would I want to pay more to be used as a walking billboard to market a label, which, in itself has no substance in reality, is nothing more than an illusion?