What's In A Name???

Apparently everything!

“Why aren’t you wearing your specs?” I quizzed him. “Err.. because I can’t find them?”  “What do you mean you can’t them find them? You’re sure you didn’t break them again?” “No, I was returning from that seminar & I placed them in my friend’s room, on the table & that’s when I last saw them.”

That’s how my very adult, 20 yr old friend ended up losing his 3rd pair of branded prescription glasses, costing 4000bucks a pair. Makes me wonder why not go for that cheap but ok type of specs instead? One that you can afford to lose & feel as guilty as you would when India lost another cricket match. But no, a rose won’t smell to them as sweet if it wasn’t a hybrid one cultivated in some exclusive nursery and having a price tag you’d rather expect real estate brochure to have.

What’s the mystery behind being brand loyal? Personally it appears to me as an addiction, something that makes no sense & totally ruins you, at least your wallet or your parents’. Take the case of wearing a specific brand of inner wear (and am not talking lingerie). Hello? Do you realize no one is gonna check that out? Oh, no problem you always have low-waist-gravity –loving jeans to show off that name & of course leave a few buttons open to show more than your waxed chest. They call it “metro-sexual”, I call it “SILLY”!

I can’t complete this without mentioning another friend who had a weird way of being a brand-addict. He believed in not wasting away his parents ‘cash, so he ended up saving to buy himself branded stuff. Skipping lunch, not recharging phone etc. He would wear those irrational jeans & even more irrationally have expensive shades AND at least 3 pairs of prescription glasses to ‘go with every look’ whatever that means,.

I can at least credit him with some good taste unlike one of my female friends who is as loaded as she is dumb. She goes shopping to some of the most expensive outlets to buy the most bizarre clothes. Thus ending up looking like she spent her afternoon in some flea market!

My dear cousin recently took to brands ‘coz her colleagues recommended them. And now she won’t wear anything priced less than 1000bucks. She wears a leading brand’s gym wear at home & is none the wiser.

Personally I do recommend brands when it comes to goggles or sun screens or cosmetics ( I take sci-fi movies seriously, the ozone layer holes & the fairness ads). But why trade a name for quality? If you get the same thing at a lesser price it doesn’t lower your status, it should prove how smart you are. Nobody’s turning your clothes inside out looking for that tag! It’s the way you dress up & carry yourself that matters. If you have that kind of a personality you can even pull off a red-orange-green combo or a polka-dotted shirt with pinstriped trousers! (Disclaimer: I am not liable for the consequences).

And anyway if you think your peers would judge you by what you wear & where you shop, then you better change your group not your brand.