Any Label in the World for US3cents

The scene is a haberdashery shop in downtown Harare. They stock the usual stuff: buttons, ribbon, pins, etc. It’s hardly the place where you would find clothing labels such as Wrangler, Tommy Hillfiger and Cherokee. but a man comes in and asks for five Wrangler “labels”. The shopkeeper unflinchingly reaches under the glass-top counter and pulls out five pieces of square cloth. The customer takes out Z$5 million (about 3 US cents) and walks away happily with his labels.

All of a sudden it hits me. He’s a tailor and will immediately multiply the value of whatever pair of jeans he sews by adding the “Wrangler” label to it. I stand there agape and taken aback.

In my mind two words keep on repeating themselves.

“What the…”

“What the…”

“What the…”

Then in a flurry I’m thinking about the clothes in my wardrobe back home. Yes, I do have some wrangler jeans. How genuine are they are wonder. Is there any way of telling? I think of all my other clothes. Do the labels mean anything? Anything at all?

I check myself and take out some money so that I can buy a few of the labels and inspect them closely. I buy three or four and I look closely at them letter for letter. W.R.A.N.G.L.E.R. Exactly the same.

I’m aware of people who make fake gear and change the name slightly, e.g. Nike might be changed to Mike and written in such a way that you would be non the wiser unless you looked very closely.

But these labels are exactly the same as the originals- at least to me the customer they do.

I walk out of the shop wondering how it’s possible to sell them in broad daylight and not get arrested for priracy, fraud, copyright infringement, misinformation, theft by conversion, falsifying of claims and so many other violations I could think of if I was a policeman right now.

I’m not one for buying clothes- or anything else- just because it has a certain label pinned to it, but I definitely subscribe to the idea of getting what you pay for.

I think of my own industry- web design. When I was at Venekera we used to label all the websites we designed at the bottom of every page: “Powered by Venekera Works”. I’m imagining one of our competitors putting our label on their site. Unheard of…

I’ll think twice next time before I buy any piece of clothing. Cut off the labels & sell it to me as it is.

Written by fungaijames on May 13th, 2008 with no comments.
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