Big Logos No Longer the Name of the Game
As a spoof, John Maciel and his pals recently played in a for-fun bowling tournament decked out as “yuppies from hell.”
“We wore everything with huge Polo logos,” said Maciel, a 32-year-old consultant from the San Francisco Bay Area. “We had the hats, the shirts. We wanted to be outrageous.”
After a lengthy reign as the quintessential status symbol, the big logo has become passe, even embarrassing, to some discerning dressers. With retail and counterfeit markets saturated with boldly monogrammed merchandise, many people are snubbing larger-than-life logos and demanding more subtle designer representations, or none at all.
“I don’t want to wear anything that screams of a label,” Maciel said. “I wear things that other people might know are a brand name, but not because of the logo.”
By no means are logos dead. They still are popular among teens, tourists and others. But consumers, particularly those in the high-end, baby boomer market, are showing a weariness for clothes and accessories that flagrantly advertise such labels as CK, DKNY and Tommy Hilfiger.
Designers have sensed this change and are increasingly emphasizing quality and design instead of just a brand name.
Donna Karan this spring plans to introduce a new, more discreet logo that will appear on all DKNY merchandise, hang tags, advertising and even hangers, for instance. Louis Vuitton last year introduced a leather goods line that does not prominently display its LV monogram. Fendi, Dolce & Gabbana and Prada also have come forth with more discreet labels on some of their products. Nike has toned down the visibility of its omnipresent “swoosh” logo. It uses a lowercase “nike” instead of the swoosh in commercials, and it has a clothing line that doesn’t use the swoosh.
And even Tommy Hilfiger, perhaps the king of big, bold logos, is scaling back on logo-driven sportswear.
Call it a brand backlash, or perhaps a revolt of the rich against what they consider a bastardization of brands, analysts said.
Carol Fertig, a partner of Smart Co., a New York-based marketing firm, said upscale shoppers are opting for subtlety to differentiate themselves.
Fertig herself fastened black tape on her accessories with Prada’s familiar triangular logo, in an effort to distance herself from the numerous people prancing around with the same Prada merchandise.
“It makes me feel disgusting to display logos because they’ve become so prevalent in the marketplace, and my job is to stay ahead of the market,” she said. “I love Prada, but I don’t want to have what everyone else has.”
Logos had their heyday in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, when it was hip to show what you had. If people could afford designer clothes, they flaunted it. The bigger the logo, the better.
Rap artists and some celebrities added to the cachet by wearing visible designer labels on music videos and television. And designers willingly flooded stores with logo-driven merchandise because it helped market their names.
With the black market, however, designer logos became available to the masses. Almost anyone could own a bag with the Gucci monogram or a sweatshirt printed with the word “Polo.” Some designers brought out lower-priced lines that made logo attire available to a larger number of consumers. And with a wide variety of designer apparel available at outlet stores, logos further lost their cachet.
Plus, many rap artists no longer want to serve as walking billboards for designers, said Elena Hart, fashion marketing director of the Fashion Assn. in New York.
“Hip-hop artists had been known to wear big, splashy logos like Polo, Hilfiger and Fubu, but it’s gotten to a point where so many people are stamped with logos that it’s become too commercial,” Hart said. “Now what you see are hip-hop artists dressed in suits.”
Hart also believes musical tastes are changing, which is influencing fashion.
“Music is moving into R&B; and swing,” she said. “The whole mood of the country is moving toward elegance and dressing up. With this comes more conservative logos.”
Hart doesn’t believe logos will entirely disappear, but she sees more understated logos as the wave of the future.
Trey Laird, senior vice president of creative services at Donna Karan in New York, agrees. He said the DKNY logo is being revamped on its 10th anniversary to reflect changing sentiments of less flash and more sophistication.
Although the new logo will debut this spring, the company already has downplayed the DKNY monogram on some accessories. The label appears in the corner of certain products, and the lettering is much smaller than before. Starting this spring, belt buckles, T-shirts, sweatshirts and other merchandise won’t be splashed with DKNY. Even the company’s ads will be more low-key.
“Our DKNY logo has been very visible, larger than life,” Laird said. “This was very appropriate when we first launched a decade ago. But things are now more subtle. We’re now focusing on the design of our product, not depending on our logo to sell our products.”
Tommy Hilfiger sportswear also is evolving.
“There will be less obvious usage of logos,” said Catherine Fisher, a spokeswoman for the company. “There will be a scaling back of logos on our knit shirts and other sportswear, but the logo will still be strong in our jeans line.”
And although Louis Vuitton’s monogram leather goods, displaying interlocking “LVs,” still are top sellers, the French luxury leather maker last spring introduced “Monogram Vernis” from designer Marc Jacobs. The collection includes accessories with a subtle non-embossed LV monogram.
“Louis Vuitton monogram is such an icon that I like the idea of making it both visible and invisible in a sleek, young and contemporary way,” Jacobs said in a statement.
For their part, retailers have noticed more customers opting for items with smaller logos, although logos still are important to many people.
“There’s a whole new idea of status,” said Nicole Fischelis, fashion director at Saks Fifth Avenue in New York. “People want to look more individualized. They want quality and design integrity. Merchandise has to look special.”
Said Maciel: “Yuppies want to find things that are cool, without looking obviously cool. There’s definitely a cachet to being discreet.”
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Ad Ratings
Retail advertisers dominated prime-time television broadcasts in Los Angeles for the week ended Dec. 20. Here are the leading prime-time advertisers in the week before Christmas.
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Household Ads Rank Advertiser rating* shown 1 Sears 619.4 91 2 JC Penney 546.7 67 3 Wal-Mart 509.8 81 4 McDonald’s 422.0 62 5 Blockbuster Video 330.3 65 6 KFC 277.8 38 7 Radio Shack 215.5 32 8 Kmart 214.5 34 9 Burger King 212.5 45 10 Montgomery Ward 209.6 48
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*Each rating point represents 51,351 TV homes.
Source: Nielsen Media Research Monitor-Plus Service
