PAYING GANT ATTENTION

I was surprised to find out last weekend that my new spectacles have a name printed upon them, and, to be perfectly honest, I was more than a tad perturbed when I discovered that it wasn’t MY name but some branding exercise by someone who believes that they are perfectly within their rights to plaster their name onto my face simply because they supposedly designed the flippin’ things.

Of course it came as a bit of a shock to the person who pointed it out (to whom such things seemed to matter quite a lot) that I really didn’t give a rat’s kidney who this “Gant” person was simply because I’ve never really paid anything other than scant attention (or should that be “gant attention…?”) to that whole “designer label” nonsense anyway, and finding out that my glasses cost me far more than they ought to have done just because they are a recognised “brand” is something that irritates me far more than the discovery that they have a certain amount of kudos amongst the kind of people who do pay attention to such things.

After all, when you’re trying on glasses in an opticians, you are really designing for yourself the “look” that your face furniture is going to present to the entire world for the next couple of years and yet, because the sample frames only have plain glass lenses in them, you’re pretty much blind as a bat when you’re making that decision. Luckily, I had help on hand, and my beloved was able to design me in her own image and we were finally able to cast away those spectacles which she had apparently disliked for the past three years which were, of course, the ones I had chosen for myself last time.

I, of course, completely failed to notice the “branded” nature of our eventual choice, and instead went with the “What do you think? Do you like them? Well, I’ll have these then…” route for ordering up my facial future.

God knows what will happen if I ever decide to have plastic surgery…

But then, when it comes to the whole notion of “designer labels” well, I’ve rarely been all that impressed by them to be honest. Oh, I’ll admit that when I had to replace my television once after those “wannabe rock stars” (allegedly) made off with it, I persuaded myself that a brand name was really the only way to go as I was living under the - possibly dubious – belief that “You get what you pay for” when it comes to electronic goods.

In later years, the door falling off my “well-known brand name” fridge would finally dissuade me of that particular myth.

But when it came to clothes or luggage or accessories or food, none of this branding nonsense ever really held all that much sway with me.

It probably explains a lot.

After all, despite having occasionally been able to scrub myself up and appear to be reasonably “respectable” or “smart”, I have generally made my way through life being a bit of a “Scruffy Herbert” and have occasionally wondered (usually during those “vital” job interviews when I was failing to persuade anyone of my potential and genius…) whether I might as well have “LOSER” tattooed onto my forehead in shiny big capital letters.

But then I’ve never seen the appeal of tattoos either (or any of those other “trendy” body adornments for that matter), but that’s probably a topic to steer well clear of…

I did once work in a place where those “designer labels” seemed to be very important, at least amongst a certain sector of the workforce, (usually – although not always - the younger element), who would mercilessly mock those of us whose shoes or trousers or shirts merely came from a supermarket line, but, once they started having to stretch their own pennies as their own lives moved along, such choices seemed to come more easily to them, too.

I did once buy a Yves St Laurent suit for a wedding I was involved with after I’d been told that the soon-to-be happy couple were not hiring outfits but wanted us all in “double breasted dark suits” for the day. Later on, due to some idea that someone had about having waistcoats made, suits had to be hired anyway, so that was money well spent.

Actually it was.

One thing you can say about Yves was that he knew how to cut a “timeless classic” even if it was a timeless classic that now hangs a-mouldering in my wardrobe as moth food.

I also recently paid far too much for a CK shirt that I suspect I’ll only wear once although, (and despite what that person who pointed out the make of my spectacles might think), I didn’t even notice that name on the bag when I took it off the rack in the shop from which I bought it.

“This one’s white and the right size. It’ll do…”

“It’ll do.” Perhaps we should put that on our family coat of arms.

If we had one, that is…

But then that’s a whole other world of “branding” into which I really wouldn’t want to venture…