The other day we went to get a pair of sunglasses for Bunny, her old ones having got scuffed and scratched through long use. She tried on several pairs and finally chose one. How do they look? she asked. They look fine, i replied, and asked the salesperson what the damages were. Rs 13,617 only, the salesperson said. I rocked back on my heels. We're buying one pair of glasses, not the whole factory that makes them, i explained. The price quoted is for one pair of sunglasses, the salesperson said. And added, they're Gucci; see the big G on the sides.
The penny or rather the Rs 13,617 dropped. I'd heard of this Gucci fellow. He was what people who knew about these things, which were beyond my ken, called a Designer (spelt with a capital D and pronounced Dee-jiner in local lingo). The first time i saw his name in print in one of those glossy magazines which look like they've been pinched from the Presidential Suite of a 7-star hotel i thought Gucci was pronounced Gucky, to rhyme with Yucky. I was corrected and told that Gucci wasn't in fact pronounced Gucky, but Goochey, to rhyme with Poochey. This was on account of the fact that Gucky, sorry, Goochey was Italian. A lot of Designers are Italian, and all their names, as in the case of Sindhis, end with an 'i' sound, as in Armani, Hugo Bossini, and Rohit Balini.
Anyway, here we were with a pair of Goochey glasses and a price tag that looked like Zimbabwe's fiscal deficit. I bought a pair of dark glasses once and they were only 200 bucks, i said. Ah, then they couldn't have been Goochey, the salesperson said. No, they were not; they were Mamooli, and i bought them from a roadside vendor, i said. The salesperson shuddered delicately and asked Bunny whether she'd like the Goocheys wrapped up or would she wear them out of the premises. As we left the shop, i calculated that we'd spent Rs 200 on a pair of glasses and Rs 13,417 on a couple of Gs (for Goochey) which i could have bought for five bucks a pop in the bazaar and stuck on with Fevicol.
That's the thing about Designers i don't understand. How come we pay them in order to turn ourselves into walking advertising hoardings for their products? Take those people who go around with chhipkalis stuck on the front of their shirts. Why do you have a chhipkali on the front of your shirt? i asked a person once. It's not a chhipkali; it's an alligator and it's the symbol of a very famous Designer, explained the person. So now when i see people going around with chhipkalis on their shirts i know they're not chhipkalis at all, but the symbol of a very famous Designer called Lacosti. Or is it Crocodilli?
Whatever it is, all those famous Designer symbols we pay so much for advertise not us but the Designers. What we are doing when we sport Designer labels is not just giving free ad space on our bodies to those Designers; weare actually paying them large sums of money to publicise themselves through us. It's as though the TOI instead of charging people who advertise their goods and services on its pages were to offer to pay the advertisers for the privilege of carrying their ads. Suppose the Ad Manager of the TOI were to go up to, say, Maruti Suzuki (more Italians?) and say: Hey, guys, how about letting us carry your ad in the TOI for which the TOI will pay you Rs 2,25,000 as a special offer under our Mastermoron scheme. Such an Ad Manager wouldn't last very long. Nor would the coffers of the TOI, which would soon be barer than Mother Hubbard's cupboard.
Yet we think nothing of paying Designers loads of lolly for publicising their wares. It's time for a consumer revolution. Instead of paying them for strutting their stuff, we should start charging Designers for the service we're doing them. And i know where to send my first bill, of Rs 13,417. Goochey ya.
The penny or rather the Rs 13,617 dropped. I'd heard of this Gucci fellow. He was what people who knew about these things, which were beyond my ken, called a Designer (spelt with a capital D and pronounced Dee-jiner in local lingo). The first time i saw his name in print in one of those glossy magazines which look like they've been pinched from the Presidential Suite of a 7-star hotel i thought Gucci was pronounced Gucky, to rhyme with Yucky. I was corrected and told that Gucci wasn't in fact pronounced Gucky, but Goochey, to rhyme with Poochey. This was on account of the fact that Gucky, sorry, Goochey was Italian. A lot of Designers are Italian, and all their names, as in the case of Sindhis, end with an 'i' sound, as in Armani, Hugo Bossini, and Rohit Balini.
Anyway, here we were with a pair of Goochey glasses and a price tag that looked like Zimbabwe's fiscal deficit. I bought a pair of dark glasses once and they were only 200 bucks, i said. Ah, then they couldn't have been Goochey, the salesperson said. No, they were not; they were Mamooli, and i bought them from a roadside vendor, i said. The salesperson shuddered delicately and asked Bunny whether she'd like the Goocheys wrapped up or would she wear them out of the premises. As we left the shop, i calculated that we'd spent Rs 200 on a pair of glasses and Rs 13,417 on a couple of Gs (for Goochey) which i could have bought for five bucks a pop in the bazaar and stuck on with Fevicol.
That's the thing about Designers i don't understand. How come we pay them in order to turn ourselves into walking advertising hoardings for their products? Take those people who go around with chhipkalis stuck on the front of their shirts. Why do you have a chhipkali on the front of your shirt? i asked a person once. It's not a chhipkali; it's an alligator and it's the symbol of a very famous Designer, explained the person. So now when i see people going around with chhipkalis on their shirts i know they're not chhipkalis at all, but the symbol of a very famous Designer called Lacosti. Or is it Crocodilli?
Whatever it is, all those famous Designer symbols we pay so much for advertise not us but the Designers. What we are doing when we sport Designer labels is not just giving free ad space on our bodies to those Designers; weare actually paying them large sums of money to publicise themselves through us. It's as though the TOI instead of charging people who advertise their goods and services on its pages were to offer to pay the advertisers for the privilege of carrying their ads. Suppose the Ad Manager of the TOI were to go up to, say, Maruti Suzuki (more Italians?) and say: Hey, guys, how about letting us carry your ad in the TOI for which the TOI will pay you Rs 2,25,000 as a special offer under our Mastermoron scheme. Such an Ad Manager wouldn't last very long. Nor would the coffers of the TOI, which would soon be barer than Mother Hubbard's cupboard.
Yet we think nothing of paying Designers loads of lolly for publicising their wares. It's time for a consumer revolution. Instead of paying them for strutting their stuff, we should start charging Designers for the service we're doing them. And i know where to send my first bill, of Rs 13,417. Goochey ya.
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