What always amazes me about these things is that people actually believe that the designer whose name appears on these goods had even the slightest thing to do with the design, manufacture and quality control of the product.
Salvatore Ferragamo is predominantly a shoe designer. Even the latest range of shoes bearing his name will have very little input from him at all. If anything, the closest it gets to hime is a junior designer working within the organisation
Just as Donna Karan has beggar all to do with DKNY watches jeans, umbrellas, bedding, shoes etc etc that bear her name. 9 times out of 10 , some manufacturer is chosen to produce goods and brand it DKNY.
Go to the Raffles hotel and you will find a shop selling everything from golf balls to tea towels to shirts to chocolates to silk scarves bearing the name Raffles. The same companies who make their goods make for the Hilton Group of Hotels, Marriots Hotels , Savoy, The Ritz ,Harrods of London, plus numerous high end retailers such as Gucci, Longines, cartier etc for their merchandising divisions.
That does not necessarily mean they make better quality than others. Their production capability means that they produce hundreds of non-branded lines of the same quality that they sell to wholesalers around the world.
Ostensibly if you become part of the group of people who look for the cachet in my goods with a well known marque, you pay over the odds to provide free advertising for name brands.
The true sign of quaslity is NOT showing the brand. Go down Savile Row and buy a suit. Undoutably the best suit you will ever buy, but the fact is its quality will show in the way it fits, not in having Savile Row emblazoned on it in 6 inch high lettering.
Buy a pair of hand made shoes in London, and you can pay more than S$10000, but no-one would be able to tell from looking at them, unless they were "in the know". They will, however, feel like shoes worth S$10000.
Not so with Jimmy Choo's. His shoes are sold simply on cachet and the kudos afforded to wearers of his shoes.
Oh well, as P.T. Barnum said "There's a sucker born every minute"
