Why do Parisiennes shun logos and avoid major branding?

It’s because logos are considered overdone these days.

It’s also a sign of those who are not really from money or old, distinguished and established families from back in the times of royalty.

You know, very “nouveau riche” (new money), whereas you’d rather be from old money and a distinguished family, which is something I find permeates even in North American society a little, if you’re from a “founding” family, or a very old one like Astor, Whitney, Rockefeller, etc.

You want to pretend like you’ve always had money and this is how you live, not that you came into it, and are now learning how to spend it, so you go out and buy two $30,000 Apple iWatches for your dog to wear.

It’s ostentatious.

NOBODY WANTS TO BE A WALKING BILLBOARD

Logos are also free advertising that you are really into designer brands and luxury, but it is now the opposite that everyone wants to cultivate as an image.

No one wants to be a walking billboard for a brand any more, being covered head to toe in Chanel or Hermès is not as stylish or as cool as mixing up your Chanel bag with some jeans from H&M and a vintage leather jacket you found in a thrift store for instance.

They’d rather have a discreet purse worth $5000 that they know about, with a luxurious silk lining done in the finest leather with the best hand stitching money from an obscure brand than buy a Louis Vuitton Speedy plastered all over with logos.

Or they have a Burberry bag, but they make it their own by personalizing it so that you see it as YOUR bag not a Burberry bag.

ONCE THE MASSES ARE INTO IT, IT’S OVER

Once these brands are accessible (price-wise) to the masses, it loses its lustre.

It is no longer rare, inaccessible, and a sign of truth wealth or status.

It’s now something to be reviled and thrown aside, and those who are in the know, are not the ones who are shopping and buying those bags any more.

It’s like being part of a very exclusive inner circle where everyone knows the rules, and if you, the outsider comes in with your flashy logo’ed bag, you’re immediately the outsider.

It’s all very high school and clique-y, to be honest.

Why do you think we now love “bespoke” (made-for-you-and-only-you) suits and things that look exactly like an off-the-rack suit, but can be called “bespoke”?

Now, we love handmade things that used to be reviled in the past as for the poor folk who couldn’t afford to buy anything in a store, so they made it themselves.

So if a tween taking the bus can now buy and carry the same purse as you, it is really not that cool any more.

It is much cooler if you have the ONLY bag that NO one can buy, which is why Hermès does so well to limit and cultivate this mystique of how rare their Birkin bags are, that you need to be on a waiting list for 5 years to even be allowed to buy one.

(*cue sarcastic eyeroll here*)

Big logos and all that went out in the 90s when Tommy Hilfiger in particular, flooded the market with logos all over the place, and the idea of logos is oversaturated.

It’s also the reason why I see that people don’t wear Burberry logos or show off that plaid check as much as they used to when I was younger.

It used to be the Burberry check all over the place, but now it is a simple trench coat, with only the hint of that check in the collar or inside the coat, but you will try your damnedest to hide it when you go out.

You want the actual piece to speak for its quality without saying it in a logo.

THEY WOULD RATHER BE INDIVIDUALS WHO BLEND IN SEAMLESSLY

It is so weird, but the best way I can describe it is that they want to be individuals. They want to have their own cool stamp on things, their own style… yet fit in with everyone else.

It’s bizarre but true, it’s how I see them.

They don’t want YOUR perfect bag or flats, they want theirs, but in a colour only they can pull off, or it was purchased in a little secret secondhand market that only they know about, and they only (proudly) paid a few euros for it.

Everything has to have their own mark or stamp on it, yet, they still dress to blend in with the rest of whom they consider to be their circle.

They don’t want to copy your exact outfit, let alone copy YOU and YOUR essence of style.

They want to be the ones who are copied, all the while looking confident, chic and without seeming to care what you think (while simultaneously caring what you think to some degree).