What do you want to pay for?
During his talk Craig questioned the value of different items and spoke on the value we as customers impart to a product whether it's social, utility, emotion or something else. Drawing on various examples of products that are consciously made with very high costs, the theme of footwear came up on multiple occasions. Brands such as: Trickers British wing tip brogues which cost upwards of £300 new, Trippen shoes from Berlin, again around £300, and Manila Blahnik custom made shoes which grew in fame from sex in the city and start at around £800.
The theme of footwear and quality vs price is something that interests me massively. As a part time shoe sales assistant I'm surrounded by expensive shoes and required to give advice to the consumer on what shoes are worth it. The shoes that surround me however are very different from the above examples, most made to much lower quality standards at a much faster pace in huge factories abroad. Craig discussed the wage of a shoe making apprentice in the UK being around £5/hr, while I agree this is far too low for a highly skilled job it makes me question how little the people making the shoes for giants like Nike and Adidas are being paid.
Shoe making seems to have gone from an art form to a race to produce more and more shoes as quick as possible and keep margins high. Recently, people have gone crazy for black and white panda dunks made by Nike, often selling out the same day as they restock. These shoes are the antithesis of the Tricker's winged brogue. They are produced in massive quantities worldwide, and have been restocked numerous times due to high demand. They are a default in design and colour with progressively worse and worse quality with every restock. The stitching is haphazard, there is glue everywhere and they don't last. Shoes like these sometimes make me question if the art form is dying out in our generation, I personally hadn't heard of any of the shoe companies Craig mentioned in his talk before hand. And I considered myself very knowledgable about shoes!
Panda Dunks
The industry now is saturated with huge companies producing millions of items daily, consumerism and fast fashion have caused the landscape to become bleaker and bleaker. My aspirations are to become a designer in footwear and go back to more thoughtful processes but at big companies right now the task feels a bit insurmountable. It's important I think to put the consumer back in the forefront, and for the consumer to get more information about what it is they (we) are paying for.
For Trickers its luxury, customisation, craftsmanship, durability, materials and timelessness at a high cost both in manufacture, emissions per item and retail. On the opposite side of the spectrum, for dunks its convenience, trendiness, more modern materials (an example of bad quality ones unfortunately) manufactured using modern cutting edge processes at a much lower cost. For me the best solution needs to be a more modern example or Trickers and Trippen for our generation.
It's must be a balance, here I've looked at the footwear industry as an example but it applies to all products. The new age of manufactured products must be concise and mindful of their impact on the welfare of the planets and use modern technologies but only to enable new innovation, not to produce excessive amounts of product. There is hope out there for a modern, sustainable, consciously manufactured revolution.
Craig broke his recipe for success into four sections which I think can definitely be taken into this new age.
Reality
"Take time to understand and appreciate those who are involved in the process"
Relationship
"Build trust and respect in channels to market and beyond"
Required Skills
"Invest time and energy in the pursuit of being knowledgable and conversant with the tools, processes and culture"
Responsibility
"Biggest challenge and one that will keep you focused and driven"
These for me apply to not only the designer but the consumers too. We need to all educate ourselves on the processes that are in the products we are buying, its the first step in moving away from fast fashion and I think its starting. By putting all this together we can get the best of both worlds and move into the sustainable future of product design.
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