BY DESIGN : Tags, You’re It : Clothing labels are mere labels no longer. They play up to a producer’s image--and some are even suitable for framing.
Hangtags, label stickers and pocket flashers--the colorful cardboard cutouts stuffed into the pockets of jeans or dangling from the sleeves of floral print dresses--are as much about art these days as they are about advertising.
Although the tags cost only pennies to produce (2 to 7 cents, depending on size, color and number ordered), there is often genuine artistry and visual magic in their design, says Frank Peck, president of Tag-It.
And collectors have begun to pick up on it.
“It’s kind of transcending the clothing now,” says Howie Idelson, a collector and graphic artist whose company, Urban Image, does tags for Reebok and Axo shoes. “Europeans are really into (collecting), especially the American style of tags with a real 1940s industrial edge.” B.U.M. Equipment is one of the many companies that has borrowed from that era for its tags.
Dozens of L.A. graphic design houses--from artists working solo out of their living rooms to such major suppliers as RVL, Bach Label and Tag-It--are vying to snag a share of the highly lucrative tag business. Most know that their work--duplicated as many as 2 million times on large orders--will ultimately end up in the circular file.
Still, a marketing concept built around clever packaging can mean the difference between success or failure, says Bryan Bach, owner of Bach Label. “If you make a product today, it can be knocked off in a matter of hours,” he says. “It’s the image of the company that cannot be copied.”
Because clothing companies are particularly vulnerable to knockoff artists, they invest heavily in their image.
“Thirty years ago, you’d buy a pair of jeans and they’d come folded. That was the extent of it. Now you have point-of-purchase displays, hangtags, pocket flashers, tissue paper, the box and the bag. The whole presentation of the product has become almost as important as the product itself,” says Hal Apple, a Manhattan Beach graphic designer whose work can be found on shoes and other products by Skechers and Dr. Marten. For consistency’s sake, he is also called upon to create coordinating posters, brochures, boxes, bags and billboards.
The process usually begins with a few simple directions from a client, Peck says. “Few fashion designers actually create their own tags. Usually they’ll tell us they’re going into a Western look or doing something a little more old-fashioned, and they’ll ask us to create some artwork with this in mind.”
In the past, and without the aid of computers, it could take an artist two weeks to come up with a single hangtag. Today, one might churn out half a dozen options in one afternoon. The majority are discarded long before they reach store shelves.
“We always give the customer choices, usually five or six different designs to choose from,” explains Tony Bourne, who heads the Tag-It art department and has created images for such well-known local labels as Z. Cavaricci, Carole Little, Rampage, Stussy, Quiksilver, Guess, Mossimo and Billabong. Often, the finished tags incorporate elements from several proposed designs.
One Mossimo tag, a 7-inch-by-8-inch collage of such architectural details as a Doric column, is suitable for framing.
It’s the art, not the potential financial gain, that attracts collectors to tags, but some vintage pieces are worth something. How much depends on whom you ask. If the tags are affixed to a vintage item, they add about 5% to the garment’s value, says Jeff Spielberg, a local dealer who buys and sells antique clothing. “They are an indicator that the garment has never been washed or used, and that’s why it enhances its value.”
More important, the tags make a statement, says Patti Parks McClain, curator of Museum of Vintage Fashion in Lafayette, Calif., and an avid collector whose stash includes tags from the early 1800s. “They are part of the provenance of the garment. They often tell the period, the designer and sometimes even the quality,” she says. As such, they offer historical and artistic significance. “They’re worth what we call intrinsic value to a museum,” she adds.
McClain hopes to mount an exhibit of her tags and labels within the year. She says her favorites among the collection tell stories. “I have one from the 1820s that was produced by a beaver-hat manufacturer. (The tag) says, ‘We can provide, on very short notice, hats for funerals.’ I just think that is hilarious.”
