Nina Garcia’s post in the HBR blog highlighted the issue of maintaining the integrity of a brand’s design aesthetics, that it is possible to offer both quality products at an affordable price. However, the most interesting proposal that was made was that consumers don’t simply seek out the cheapest good, but rather, ones where quality has not been compromised for price.

However, considering Garcia’s background as a fashion editor as well as a Project Runway judge, from an everyday consumer standpoint I would argue that such holds true only in each individual market segment rather than the market as a whole. For example, a middle class working man may consider a tailored suit from a regular chain store such as Tip Top as perfectly acceptable in both quality and price, whereas an individual with a much higher income would not consider anything less than designer as “quality.” Furthermore, once a certain threshold has been reached, what even separates the quality in terms of construction of (for example) shoulder bags from Coach and Louis Vuitton other than the brand itself? What exactly constitutes a 500$ difference in pricing? Cost of labour? Perhaps. A 1000$ price difference? Suddenly the difference in cost of labour doesn’t seem to me as such a viable factor anymore.