Londonderry News

What’s On Your T-Shirt?

Ya gotta love today’s material world.  So many varieties of brand name fashions that it just makes a young head spin.  Six hundred brands of sneakers, 500 of jeans, eight billion of t-shirts.  How does a kid choose which one to spend his parents’ hard earned money on?  Because the name brand is after all, the key to teenage fashion.

But, trust me, kiddies, there’s something about name-brand fashion that just seems to wear off as you get older.  At least, that’s my story.  Maybe it’s because, in my “middle years”, I just don’t see the need to spend top dollar for something like clothing that’s gonna wear out pretty quickly – no matter who’s name is on it.  Or maybe it’s because I’m frugal.  Or cheap.  Possibly stingy.  Definitely practical.  Whatever the real reason, it’s a rare occasion when I purchase clothing that has a fashion logo on it.  I just don’t get the infatuation.

But I wasn’t always that way.  As a teenager myself, way back in the 60s and 70s, I wouldn’t have been caught dead wearing just any old pair of dungarees – or jeans, as they are more popularly known today .  They had to be made by Levi Strauss.  Or, in a pinch, by Wrangler.  Those generic store brand jeans just weren’t for me.

And then there were sneakers – another important item requiring a name brand to fit in with the crowd.  My personal favorite was Adidas.  As is typical, I liked the name more than anything – it had that foreign air to it.  I felt as if I was speaking Spanish each time I rolled the word off my tongue – AH DEE DAS, Senorita.  Turns out, however, that those sneakers were actually manufactured in Germany and named after the company’s founder Adolph “Adi” Dassler way back in 1921.   So much for romantic fashion…  Achtung, baby!

Other than jeans and sneakers, I can’t think of any name brand clothing that teens really craved back then.  We didn’t buy our own dress clothes, that’s for sure – no one wore those too often anyhow.  Things like dress shirts, dress pants, ties, and sport coats were usually Christmas gifts.  And we had no idea as to what the name brands were for those kinds of items anyhow… Nor did we wear them often enough to care.

Years later, as my own kids grew up, and life became more expansive, so did brand names.  Name brand retail stores began popping up everywhere, selling anything they could slap a logo on.   Aeropostale, American Eagle, Old Navy, The Gap, and Hollister, among hundreds of others, made their way into the dictionary, as well as the home, commanding premium prices for their “exclusive clothing” which is primarily manufactured in China, India, or Vietnam.  Heck, for all I know, the more popular jeans sold today, which are pre-washed and pre-ripped, may have been stuff I threw out years ago.  And if that’s so, then there are at least a few garments out there that were made in the good ol” USA… It’s nice to dream anyhow.

Back in the day, I wouldn’t have dreamed of wearing a shirt with the words Sears, Woolworth, or Zayre emblazoned across the front.  It just wouldn’t have been ‘cool’ to advertise some store on my clothes.  But today, having the store name splashed across a t-shirt, the rear end of your jeans, or the breast pocket of your polo shirt is as important as the quality of the shirt itself.  Maybe even more important.  Not that the Chinese, Indians, and Vietnamese really care.  As long as America keeps utilizing their factories and cheap labor.

And sneakers?  Wow.  There are dozens of name brands out there, with names like Reebok, Nike, Puma, New Balance – even Adidas is still in the mix.  Tripping over each other to provide the latest basketball sneaker, running shoe, or trainer, sponsored by one sports icon or another.  You’ll find very few of those for less than $49 a pair, and many around the $100 mark.  Gotta pay those sports figures, I suppose – because the Chinese factory workers sure aren’t making that kind of money these days…not yet anyhow.

So I guess I’ve only proven that, even across different generations, most American kids get caught up in the brand name fixation at one time or another.  The only difference is that there are many more brand names to go around these days than when I was a kid.  And that will, no doubt, continue to increase in the years ahead.  But by then, my kids will be “middle aged” like I am now – and probably more frugal, cheap, stingy, and practical about these things.  Till their own kids start to discover brand name fashions…and the beat goes on.

Visit Londonderry Hometown Online News every Tuesday Morning for another one of Joe’s great columns! Share with a friend’s Joe is back!

Joe’s Two Cents – It’s Great To Be Alive is Joe Paradis’ first published book and gathers 40 of his most popular stories, enhancing them with humorous photography. The book is a compilation of forty of Joe’s best short stories.

Injecting humor into topics from everyday life, Joe answers those earth-shattering questions we all have about the beach, the bathroom, the junk drawer. From guys’ tools to girl talk. High school seniors to the senior years.

This classic collection has been updated to include pictures and a short introduction for each story. Until now, only God knew what possessed Joe to write about these things. Now you can too!

Joe Paradis is one of Londonderry’s most popular columnists and authors. Visit his web site at www.joes2cents.com today and order his latest autographed book, “It’s Great to Be Alive!”