Initial Reaction

For many people, wearing something that lacks snob appeal is like making love with a condom--the thrill isn’t quite there. If that analogy crosses the line between good and bad taste, then Tom Ford and Miuccia Prada, the typhoid Marys of the current epidemic of label fever, would undoubtedly be amused.

Ford, design director of Gucci and architect of the company’s latest dazzling rise, last year brought back logos with a wink and a nod to the wretched excess of previous status-bound eras. Garishly colored outfits in clashing prints with prominent Gs were his reaction to the sober mood that infected fashion early in this decade.

“Everything was so restrained,” he says. “People didn’t smoke or drink or have sex or wear fur anymore. No one wanted to look too rich.”

The bad-taste movement that followed was pregnant with shock value.

“Sometimes a little bad taste can be interesting, and it looked new,” Ford says. “When logos came back in ’95 there was a kitsch quality to them, a cynicism in their presentation. It was a little bit of putting some flash back in, and the people wearing the logos were secure enough that they could wear the big double Gs, even though they knew they were kind of tacky. The public has gone through the phase of wanting labels, then throwing them away and then saying, ‘I can wear this again, it’s funny.’ ”

So if logos are back, and they are, neither designers nor consumers are taking them as seriously this time around. Celebrities and fashion magazines have granted license to flaunt it again, with or without brio. But not everyone is privy to the naughty wit behind status symbols, or the sometimes rebellious message of smug conspicuous consumption. Some are taking their status symbols straight again.

The objects of desire of the early ‘90s were personal secrets: Only the wearer of a very costly Jil Sander coat knew what it was. Women treasured anonymous luxuries too shy to speak their names, clothing devoid of embossed buttons or telltale initials. The lines of an Armani jacket were identifiable, but other minimalist favorites, such as Calvin Klein and Prada, lacked specific signatures or silhouettes. Today, when a well-dressed woman is asked, “Whose dress is that?” she answers, “Karl” or “Donna.” In the quiet years, she would have replied, “Mine.”

For a while, well-crafted anonymity carried prestige. Bottega Veneta, whose recognizable woven bags and shoes had their own cachet, ran an ad campaign with the slogan “When your own initials are enough.” Lately, too much is barely enough. At Chanel’s most recent runway show in Paris, fashion editors flung Chanel cashmere cardigans over their Chanel jackets or coats, knotting the sleeves at the neck like scarves. The sweaters functioned either as another layer of warmth on a brisk March day or as banners flying more golden buttons.

Although the new wave of ostentation comes laced with irony, it still makes dressing a challenge. The stylized G hinge on a Gucci shoulder bag’s strap may be subtle, but it does fight with the crown on Todd Oldham’s loafers. Add a gleaming H-buckle on an Hermes belt, double Cs on Chanel sunglasses, a Cartier watch and a vintage Schlumberger bracelet (bought at auction or, preferably, inherited) and a return to the recently departed age of understatement beckons like a month in the country.

“Aren’t we just sick of it all?” asks Wendy Goldberg, ace volunteer for a variety of L.A. causes. “If I see another V or a G. . . . I don’t need to have somebody else’s initials on my clothes in order to make them acceptable. In the old days, people who walked around wearing signs got paid for it. I just think it’s peculiar that designers are doing it. And it bothers me that when you wear a status symbol everyone else knows exactly what it costs. Who wants to flaunt anything? You want to be well dressed, but you don’t want to be a walking logo.”

*

Avoiding a monogrammed life can take real effort. In many cases, the lower the price tag, the more flamboyant the logos. This is true of DKNY and the more costly Donna Karan Collection, RL jeans and Ralph Lauren’s purple label, CK and the Calvin Klein Collection, the young, sporty Armani AX, D&G; and GFF stuff versus logo-free Giorgio Armani, Dolce & Gabbana and Gianfranco Ferre lines.

“Logos were a high-end thing first, which was then parodied at the street level,” says Simon Doonan, vice president of creative services for Barneys New York. “Then the serious designers started to be ambivalent about that liberal use of initialing. Now you see it at opposite ends of the market.”

Fashion is as democratic as the dollar, but far from an egalitarian society. In the Darwinian fashion jungle, the young, thin, rich or stylish rule, and nothing spells death to a status symbol like association with the wrong people.

“I always enjoyed seeing Tonya Harding lugging her Louis Vuitton bag with her little ice skates,” one fashion insider says, “but I’ll bet a lot of women threw their Vuittons in the attic when they saw that.”

Rhonda Sassoon, chairman of next year’s Divine Design charity event in Los Angeles, says, “If something becomes a cult item that everyone has, then I’m immediately turned off. I bought the Hermes Birkin bag about three years ago, and I thought it was fabulous because it was functional as a travel bag. And then everyone was carrying it. It was terribly expensive and it made me nauseous that I had spent so much money on it and it also made me nauseous that so many other people had it. I found it was very heavy, even before you put anything in it. As it became less practical and more fashionable, I used it less and less.”

Cynicism, wit and exclusivity aside, some status symbols earn their popularity with superior quality and good design. Hermes’ Kelly bags, which have been around since Grace Kelly lent them her name, sell for $4,000 to $17,000 (in crocodile). A Paris secondhand couture shop recently priced a “pre-owned” navy lizard Kelly bag at $7,000. “Today, people are buying status symbols because they want something they know has longevity,” says Joan Kaner, fashion director for Neiman Marcus. “It’s a return to quality and investment purchasing.”

But for every beautiful, durable or functional status symbol there’s another that is as hard to love as a bratty child. Manolo Blahnik shoes, identifiable by their pointy shape, are remarkably uncomfortable. That unfortunate reality has only increased their desirability among Conde Nast editors who tiptoe from the limo into the Paramount or the Royalton for lunch. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, covet.

Celebrities and their ghosts, from Madonna to Audrey Hepburn, (arguably the most beautiful woman to tie on an Hermes scarf) can plant a seed of desire so potent it blossoms into a million purchases. And the fashion press helps create the longing.

In 1985 Miuccia Prada stitched Pocono nylon, the material from which military tents are made, into a tote bag with a chain for a strap. She branded the homely sack with a small golden triangle etched with PRADA. The chain handle echoed the more expensive, classic Chanel bag even as the utilitarian nylon mocked it.

“Fashion editors thought it was funny that something so practical and plain could be so expensive. Reverse snobbery was a big part of its appeal,” says Ruth LaFerla, fashion director for Mirabella magazine.

Models snapped up the bags too, and civilians aspiring to the heights of style imitated the chic, well-dressed fashion professionals they saw racing through airports, oblivious to the joke that launched the look. This spring, an editor from the Midwest brought her piggy bank to Milan. She had thought for a year about the Prada bag she wanted to buy. With her prize in tow, she said to her colleagues in the fashion press, “Now I know that when I go out to lunch with a designer or a publicist from New York, I can put my bag up on the table and know that I have the perfectly right thing.”

*

Designer fashion is most compelling when it is recognizable, and when the image it represents has been preceded by advertising and marketing.

“Image is a very powerful motivation and companies capitalize on it,” says Kay Truszkowski, buyer for the Maxfield boutique in Beverly Hills. “The customer has an association with what is glamorous. They think, ‘I put that on that thing or carry that bag and I am that image. I buy this Hermes bag with a big H on it and I’m buying into the lifestyle that it represents.’ ”

If there were perfect symmetry to purchases, a woman carrying a $5,000 handbag would drive a luxury car, live in a mansion and carry the keys to a safe-deposit box stuffed with stock certificates. In reality, she might have saved a year for that purse, which contains the keys to a leased car and her apartment. Like gang colors, a status symbol effectively signals to other members of a club that one belongs, even if other requirements of membership may be missing.

Now that logos have gone from “out” to “in” with a twist, Gucci’s Ford is moving on. The only fall shoes worn by models walking the Gucci runway were high-heeled faux ponyskin platforms with nary a horse bit or G in sight.

“I didn’t use the logos much for fall because I wanted the Gucci collection to evolve,” Ford says. “I wanted people to understand that Gucci is a place to be dressed head to toe, even without a label. I wanted to make beautiful clothes that were in themselves a label, because they had a wonderful cut.”