Brand Names: You Are What You Wear?

You get on the subway and the person across you is wearing Guess jeans, Gucci sunglasses, a Burberry scarf, carrying a shiny Prada handbag. Obviously, my first impression was that she's rich.

A Vera Wang store display of a wedding dress in Toronto.

Brand names don't just sell clothes or goods. Most brand names are there to sell a lifestyle to a target audience, like Prada, Armani, Abercrombie & Fitch, Vera Wang, etc. These brands represent a lifestyle of wealth, power, high status and style. Even if knock-offs might look almost exactly the same as the originals, most people are only after the real thing.

When it comes to clothes or cars, people barely ever buy for only the use-value. No one needs the new iPhone 4s, or a Mustang. It makes sense, since first impressions are often based on looks, so it only makes sense that we want to look our best and maintain a certain image by the brands we wear.

So, are we what we wear?