A lot of people ‘can’t belong’ in our clothes

Post Reply New Topic

I saw this.

I actually mostly wear "preppy" clothes because I'm weird enough as it is and don't need to stand out. But I buy them for 50c per t-shirt at Salvation Army. I had an Abercrombie shirt and destroyed it with working on cars and being out in the woods. I would say most "preppy" clothes actually are higher quality clothes than, say, buying a 3 pack of Hanes shirts. Also, the best pair of boxers I've ever owned in my life was a pair of American Eagle boxers. Perfectly designed for me, the only boxers where the leg holes were big enough without needing to buy a size up for the waist.

I have to say Abercrombie is actually pretty smart, though. The owner is right. When you sell clothes, you must sell an idea, unless your clothes are designed for a specialized purpose (like 5.11 Tactical clothes, but even then for most people that goes into idea realm as most people are not l337 tactical viking ninja Navy Seal warriors.) Abercrombie clothing's idea is that by wearing them, you are superior. Why let lesser people wear them? This is even why they're priced so high, actually. It's not that material/etc is exponentially better, it's to price it out of the range of poor commoners. You see this with lots of things. Diamonds for example. Nothing makes diamonds more rare than, say, emeralds, but diamonds are heavily promoted the crap out of. Because the market for them was literally artificially created and controlled. Diamond makers ran advertising campaigns basically saying you were a POS if you couldn't give a diamond ring to your wife for a wedding, and it worked. http://wap.nytimes.com/2013/05/05/fashi ... n.weddings

I feel in business, there's two ways to make huge money. Sell a bunch of cheap products to everyone, or sell a few expensive products to a few people. I visited a nice wood shop in Vermont. They sold expensive hand made wooden stuff. Stuff like $300 cutting boards (I'm someone who literally went to Lowes and got some plywood and called it a cutting board.) Obviously not too many people are in the market for $300 cutting boards, and there's really zero point to owning one. But people want to feel special for whatever reason for having (pointlessly) nice things. Just like $70 HDMI cable vs $3-5 one. Either be McDonalds or be a five star restaurant. Anything else will not make you maximal profits.

Personally, I don't feel too outraged by it or anything. And I'm actually glad the Abercrombie owner is stating this openly, at least he's not lying or trying to be politically correct. I find that commendable in a strange way.

But meh, I just buy random clothes at the thrift store.

I guess it may work with most NTs. When most people think they can have something which is inherently not for many, a huge “DOES NOT COMPUTE” pops up in my mind. Acting like them feels completely unnatural to me. Needless to say, this has also made me always a prime target for bullying.

I just know that if I were a teenager trying to fit in and belong and be one of the cool kids and that ad came out I would head to that store as fast as I could so that I could feel like one of the cool kids.

You should come comment on my bullying thread in PPR.

It's interesting that he says he wants to attract kids that have a "great attitude." I'm pretty sure most kids with great attitudes don't want to be associated with jerks like him.

Oops. I never heard of the company so I didn't realize they made clothes for children. I thought the phrase "cool kids" wasn't meant literally.

The publicity is the only thing that makes sense if they're trying to sell clothes for adults. It doesn't matter if you want to be part of the cool club by buying certain clothes when you can't even wear them. I'm pretty heavy so even if I wanted to wear smaller sizes just to be cool and show that I can I wouldn't be able to. It doesn't really matter if the exclusive sizing makes people who can't use the product want it.

By kids I was talking about teenagers, I don't think they make childrens clothes, but they might. I also didn't mean that larger people would force themselves into the clothes, I meant that the smaller people who aren't cool and could fit in the clothes would be the ones buying them.

This guy is a serious douche. I understand and have suggested to my father in one of our many philosophical debates the idea of making clothes virtually unavailable in larger sizes, but that was for the sole purpose of forcing this ludicrously obese society into a health change. But for a man to market clothes only to skinny "attractive" people just because of the way they look is an outrage, especially given the ridiculously fragile self-image of the average adolescent, especially girls. I want to get a job there only to turn around and tell the boss I have AS; see what he does when he learns he has an "uncool" person working for him.

Last edited by StarTrekker on 11 May 2013, 2:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

I gotta say, I was pretty f****d up, when I heard that this company rather destroys and burns cloth they cannot sell, instead of giving them for charity because: "Rich people we want to attract to buy our cloths, could be unattracted if they saw poor people wearing those cloths."

Yeah, I am pretty sure all the rich syrian refugees in the refugee camps would instantly stop buying expensive jeans of that brand, if they saw their poor refugee colleguas in that cloths. I accept their explanation for areas, where their usual buyers really could be confronted with poor people wearing that stuff, but god damn it, then simply send it to an area, where there arent anyway any buyers of their stuff, so no buyers can be disattracted.

Lunatic capitalism is as dumb as anything done lunatic.

It's sad that this is the attitude NTs will buy into, but they do. This man is a typical example of the shallow, selfish NT that is out there in droves - he just managed to make money off it.

Well, all I can say to him and anyone like him, is that he is just another form of sheep. What is there to be so proud of? It's only clothes. If he thinks that any status worth having is one based on the amount of money you have, displayed by how much your clothes cost then he isn't worth anything, just like his clothes.

I would far rather be the individual I am, who is not a label-snob, will wear what I like based on how it suits me not whether it's in fashion or how much it cost, than a cretin who struts around with an emperor's new clothes mentality.

You have to feel sorry for someone like him. That he places his values on such pointless things. Many people with money say that it didn't make them happy, that's why they spend their time living such shallow existences, because they are desperately trying to fill their lives with distractions from the fact that they are not truly happy and those around them wouldn't give a s**t if they didn't have money. A sycophantic lifestyle where you don't know who you can really trust or rely on.

Let them continue fooling themselves. Us Aspies see the detail, we see the truth, we see the logic. We haven't sold our souls.

Let the narcissist enjoy their playground. Who cares?

That sounds needlessly cruel. What would they wear while they're trying to loose weight?

There was a kid in Rome during the days when they sent Christians to the lions who wanted to join his father to face the lions. His mother didn't think so much of the idea and so she hid his clothes so that he wouldn't go.

I thought about cramming my size 14, middle-aged, saggy self into some of those clothes--thrift-store found, of course.
And thin does not equal cool and/or good-looking. What about someone with a perfect body but a butt-ugly face?

And what about rich ugly people? Does he mind them? Or rich people who aren't ugly but have a medical condition requiring medication that makes them gain a lot of weight, such as steroids? Do you have to be rich, thin, pretty and healthy? And what about common as muck people who came into some money, but have no class - would he like them or not?

There could be poor people, that have class and manners, who are thin and beautiful - purely because they don't have money he would rather burn his clothes? Or is the real reason that the clothes are s**t and deserve burning. Maybe his pile of clothes that didn't sell is like Everest...

The company will corner themselves out of the market in the end.

I actually associate their name with old-fashioned, staid clothes. Whether that's accurate or not isn't the point. Perhaps there is such an association by a lot of people, so he is trying to make the label sound so exclusive and amazing that he will pique peoples' curiosity and have them rushing to buy. Well if they are that stupid, let them.

Not everyone who is overweight can lose weight. My younger daughter can't. Should she not have any decent clothes because it's almost impossible for her to get the weight off?

Why not just say that people with AS shouldn't have opportunities until we can force ourselves to be exactly like NT's?

Is it just me or does anyone else can get a "It's ok to bully!" kind of message in this marketing ploy?