A Customized Cure for Fashion Monotony
Running a pumice stone over a new jean jacket, Tina Phanthaamat, 18, is creating in a few seconds the snags and tears that usually speak to years of history on a wearer’s back. It’s opening day at American Eagle Outfitters’ clothing customization station, and Tova Dershowitz, a 69-year-old grandmother, is looking on, trying to grasp why anyone would want to take a new piece of clothing and rip it to pieces. “I don’t understand why they take perfectly good things and destroy them. Why pay money for something brand new that has to look old?” she wonders.
Many a teen has taken bleach, scissors or needle and thread to clothing while an older generation struggles to comprehend. But customization isn’t just for kids anymore. It’s a trend reverberating from mall stores such as American Eagle to luxury labels such as Gucci and Tod’s.
Personalized clothing may be fashion’s antidote to the sameness spawned by globalization. In the 1990s, apparel companies began blanketing the world with stores, so that a trendoid in Tokyo could have the same Louis Vuitton monogram pouch as a society maven in Costa Mesa. But now that Gucci logos and Gap jeans pop up worldwide almost as often as McDonald’s golden arches, uniqueness and exclusivity are short-lived. And many shoppers are tired of dressing like clones (even high-priced ones in Helmut Lang jean jackets and Balenciaga cargo pants).
“When a woman pays $12,000 for a handbag and she sees three of them within her social circle, that demeans its value. There’s an incentive to have something that’s truly original,” says David Wolfe, creative director of the Doneger Group, a New York-based fashion trend consulting and forecasting firm.
Customization has always been popular in Hollywood, where rockers and starlets pride themselves on getting designers to entertain their whims. But now, pieces that can be personalized are becoming more widely available as luxury companies look for ways to remain exclusive. For brands such as Hermes, Bottega Veneta, Louis Vuitton and Prada, customization means allowing customers to choose a unique color or material for purses, shoes and clothing, to make something personal while keeping the basic design.
At Tod’s stores in Beverly Hills and New York, the leather and details on handbags and shoes can be altered. Earlier this year, Gucci began offering its made-to-order menswear service in the Beverly Hills and New York stores. Customers can choose from three basic suit silhouettes, then customize them with a choice of buttons and fabrics. Gucci creative director Tom Ford says this is not a time for one look; “now is the moment when the right look is individual style.”
Ironically, mass retailers are also embracing the trend, which would seem by definition to be too individualized to be widely salable. Customization stations at the Westside Pavilion’s American Eagle store and in nine others around the country debuted in August and will be open Friday and weekend afternoons through the end of the month.
The Westside Pavilion station offers far more than just denim distressing--the store’s staff, many of whom are fashion design students, is armed with scissors, stencils, patches and colorful paints. The staff will attempt to create the customer’s vision, for free, on new or used American Eagle merchandise. It could be as simple as an eagle stencil on a rear jeans pocket or as complex as a T-shirt that’s cut into pieces and reattached with ribbons.
Judy Borenstein, a stylish 49-year-old who owns a dancewear store in Thousand Oaks, is having the sleeves of a navy blue T-shirt slashed into strips that will wrap around her upper arm like a Slinky. “I always look for unique things,” says Borenstein, who appreciates the customized look but has never taken scissors to her clothing.
Levi Strauss & Co. has had a customization station in its flagship San Francisco store for three years. “People appreciate things that are unique. They don’t want anyone else to have the same pair of jeans. They might not be creative hands-on, but they have a vision. They can say, this is what I want. Because there’s so much stuff out there, there’s a need to be able to say, this is unique, it’s mine and there’s nothing else like it,” says Karen Vurbano, a customization merchandiser at Levi’s.
Nike has offered a custom design feature called Nike iD on its Web site since fall 1999, and sales have steadily increased, according to Beth Hegde, communications manager for Nike’s running division. For an extra $10, customers can choose the color and trim of a shoe or a baseball glove as well as have their names sewn onto the items. In April, features were added for building sneakers according to specifications such as the running surface and the shape and width of the foot.
Even custom-looking garments can be enough for today’s consumers. Stores such as Rampage, Urban Outfitters and JCPenney offer clothing that is patched, distressed or slashed for that do-it-yourself vibe. “It’s the human touch we’re after. In the onslaught of modern life, anything that looks like it’s been touched by the human hand and human heart is appealing,” says Wolfe of the Doneger Group.
Customizing clothing took off in the late 1960s as young Americans moved away from tradition--symbolized in fashion by Jacqueline Kennedy’s clean-cut look--and into the realm of self-expression. In the hippie era, customization was about hand-sewn peace sign patches and embroidered daisies; in the 1980s, Madonna and Cyndi Lauper, along with punk rock icons, sported tattered clothing held in place by rows of safety pins.
Then a few years ago, designers such as Gucci’s Ford, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs and Stella McCartney began incorporating embroidery, paint splatters, fringe and lace as trim on jeans, and intentionally ripping sleeves and hemlines for a homemade look.
In the prosperous, high-flying 1990s, designer labels were in. But now style is more about the person wearing the clothes than the label sewn on the back pocket, says Susannah Cahn, fashion editor at ELLEgirl magazine. “When somebody asks you, ‘Where did you get that?’ you can say, ‘I made it.’ It’s much cooler than saying, ‘I bought it at Barneys.’ ”
Glamour magazine was inspired by the customization trend to instruct its readers on how to knock off high-priced designer clothing. In its August issue, the monthly presents readers with two cheaper alternatives to the $1,840 embroidered-waistband jeans from Ro- berto Cavalli modeled on the magazine’s cover. A $99 version can be ordered from the Levi’s customization station, and a $40 version can be made at home with beaded trim and bargain jeans from Wal-Mart. “We came up with a master plan to make these jeans available to anyone at any price. It was very satisfying because the difference between the three wasn’t all that obvious,” said Sasha Iglehart, who edited the Glamour spread.
Whether at high-end or low-end stores, with teens or adults, the popularity of customization may speak to the absence of any pervasive trends in fashion right now. People have found that they can be their own designers by tweaking simple pieces. And with the economy on shaky ground and fall shopping not an option for everyone, putting a new spin on an old standby could be just the thing.
