A World Where Name Designers Design Everything

Lisa Armstrong over at the Times in the UK has up a great op-ed, “How to Get Dressed: Why Everything is Now Designer.” It concerns the trend that everything from the impossibly high-end fashion line to the trash can you buy at Target has a designer’s name attached to it. Armstrong acknowledges the trend and offers up some examples, from Roberto Cavalli designing hotels to Prada getting into the cell phone business, and then gets into the meat and potatoes discussion, getting into the psychology of the thing. In her opinion, it’s adding another level of comforting branding for the consumer, meaning you buy the item for the label and the subset of that label (the designer), adding an additional layer of satisfaction in believing yourself to be all that much more hip and now a part of whatever lifestyle you think this product will deliver you. But while the idea of the piece seems to be, “dang, you’re all a bunch of suckers” Armstrong does end on a positive note:

…But it also means that more of us than ever before are taking an interest in design. And that can only be a good thing.

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