Wearing Branded Logos: Are People Inviting you to Judge Them?

Ever wondered why we're so tribal when it comes to brands? What is in a logo that either invokes an emotional response, or revokes our impulse to like or buy from a certain brand? Do I sound like that girl from Sex and the City again with all the front loaded questions?

Why don't suits have logos? It would be a f*8k load easier to do these best dressed and who wore what on the red carpet award show listicles. Which by the way, is going to hell in hand basket. Timothee Chalamet rocked up to the Oscars without a shirt. Young man, I get it, you're against rules. Rules are boring. But guess what, it's a black tie do. You're 18, in the words of Bond, you still have spots. you don't get to break the rules.

If you're wondering whether there was a dress code for the Oscars I looked it up, turns out the ceremony’s producers had sent out a list of guidelines for nominees which included safety protocols, speech-giving suggestions, and some words on the dress code. “We’re aiming for a fusion of Inspirational and Aspirational,” the letter read. “In actual words… formal is totally cool if you want to go there, but casual is really not.”

But I guess the Academy had bigger fish to fry this year.

Logos are funny beasts. They have to encapsulate so much about a brand without the luxury of a 140 character bio. (Although wouldn't that be a cool bio? Tricky one to embroider, but a 140 character bio). A logo is an identifier a visual shorthand for the brand that it is representing. But would a brand be better off not having a logo on its garments if the price of the said garments were 'too accessible'. If you think of ZARA for example. One of the biggest fashion brands in the world that doesn't have a visible logo. How people relish buying cheap clothes without telegraphing the brand or its price tag to strangers. There is a rich man poor man version of this.

The poor person can buy and wear ZARA clothes and not have any would-be onlookers judging you by knowing the clothes provenance. Yet the rich man would buy bespoke suits with no logos also. The idea being the house style is the logo, and the suit is a one-off that does not match the rest. Yes the clothing might make the man, but he doesn’t need a logo to have an influence over society.

What interests me are people that dress in logo wear, do so as they believe other like-minded people will identify with them. It's why men wear club ties and military ties which I'm sure will pre-date logos worn on outerwear. In the field of sportswear, logos began to be more prominent in the 1940s, when the brand named after the tennis star Fred Perry borrowed the idea of the team or club crest, displayed on the breast of shirts and sweaters. (I pulled that nugget from an interesting logo article and the history of logos on clothes can be read in full here). 

In summary, I would like to consider this as a thought experiment. When you see someone walking down the street, and you recognise the logo, what are your immediate impressions of that person? We're in a world where we're told not to judge. My friend David Gandy has that as his mantra that you shouldn't judge other people by the way they dress. Maybe that's a reason why his new Well-Wear collection has no visible logo. But aren't people that wear logos inviting you to judge them? Isn't that what they're there for?