In the days, long past, when most things people owned were locally made, the quality and cost were visible at the point of sale. A tailor or shoemaker knew his clients. Even bad suits were made by hand. Most people ate at home and even many industrial workers kept pigs, chickens or rabbits so that they knew what they ate too.
Mass production of everything, stimulated by the enormous war machines of the 20th century disrupted the remaining links between people and products. To overcome this contradiction in confidence, to win the consumer as customer for anonymous, machine-made mass production there were two main strategies. The first was price.
The low unit price of a mass-produced clothing article had to compete with the local tailoring crafts. Eventually tailors succumbed to price competition. Many joined the ranks of mass-production if they could find capital or an employer.
The second strategy was more complex. Anonymous products lacked the personal identity and the confidential relationship between artisan and client. These intangible qualities could not be transmitted through price alone. The solution to the problem became what we now know as the “brand” or “label”.
The brand, literally a mark made in the hide (or skin) using a hot iron with distinctive marks, was used to show ownership of cattle. It was also used to mark people convicted of crimes. The significant feature of the brand is that is almost indelible and easily recognized.
Thus the product to be sold was promoted by a permanent, distinguishing mark of the manufacturer. These trademarks soon became valuable property in themselves.
The brand’s commercial power derives from its distinctiveness, permanence and the value attributed to it. Thus a brand supersedes the product identified with it. Today one can find enormous resources dedicated to “building” or “protecting” the brand, in and of itself, regardless of underlying product. The practice of university students wearing distinctive clothes in inter-collegiate athletics, beginning in the early 20th century, was transformed into a branding of recreational attire with university emblems sold to people who only graduated from high school and have no athletic ambitions.
It is impossible to say that all brands are just labels or that the lack of easy identification makes a product inferior. Mass production has made mass culture and both serve their purposes in large industrialized societies.
Yet the brand also creates a niche for those whose relationship to what they buy and use is still very personal. They may travel too much to visit a local tailor for several fittings. They seek confidence and quality in small scale artisanal products. However that tiny segment is well obscured by the excess of mass communication. Yet it can be found and its vitality tapped.
Ign. Joseph was built not on the concept of a brand for mass confidence. Instead it has been an effort over more than two decades to bring the artisanal potential, especially in Italy, to those clients it can best serve. At the same time, it is a mission to revive and sustain the spirit that appreciates these arts for making fine clothing and accessories. We have put you in our shoes as we explore the hidden talents of Italy’s sartorial landscape. We walked with your perspective to re-discover the beauty of the traditional. We promote your individuality, not our “brand”. It is also why we believe that “there is no self from the shelf”.