Affordable fashions for the autumn season
There was a time when fashion meant expensive. Now it seems it’s all about how little you can spend. With the rise of Primark, Topshop and even supermarkets getting in on the bargain catwalk trends, it seems that a day has dawned where us mere mortals can emulate the catwalk without the need of an aging sugar daddy.
Rather than boast about how expensive your recently purchased bag was, it now seems that people compete to state how little they spend on their clothes. A bargain is now more sought after than a one-off haute couture frock. People are now more envious of an eight pound cardigan than a thousand pound Gucci frock. They know that to pull off a bargain requires style and a little class.
Primark has become synonymous with cheap. A few months ago discount retailer Primark was not a name many would recognise yet, because of this new bargain fever which has hit consumers, its success has rocketed. Recently it announced it is to expand through taking over 120 Littlewoods stores.
Perhaps Primark’s success lies in its ability to replicate the catwalk at pocket money prices that anyone can afford. And they do it fast. It seems as soon as it steps off the catwalk, a replica is in the shops at not only a fraction of the price but at a mere snippet. Bags for a fiver, tops for £6 and shoes for £12: these are prices where you can actually afford to make a mistake. Just buy it, we say, it’s just so cheap it doesn’t matter if you don’t wear it.
George at Asda and Florence and Fred at Tesco are now regular names on magazine fashion pages. Whoever thought that a day would dawn when we’d be buying our clothes in the same trolley as our groceries? Yet this seems to be what people want. There is just no need to spend an excessive amount of clothes if these shops can replicate the high end designer products at throw away prices.
TK Maxx is another recent discovery where bargains are a plenty, you just have to roll up your sleeves and dig deep to find them. Earl Jeans, D&G, and many other top name designers can be found in this somewhat less than beautiful warehouse. You leave feeling exhausted, battered and in desperate need of a seat but satisfyingly with the knowledge that you’ve nabbed a complete bargain.
But whilst bargain shopping does grant instant satisfaction it does require a great deal of elbow pushing and shoving to get it. Yet thirty minutes rifling through a pile of clothes to find one size ten, military style jacket in Primark seems a small price to pay if it means you can wear a Marc Jacobs copy at £30 rather than £300.
Whilst this cut-price war has meant that Primark and big name supermarkets Tesco and Asda, have been embroiled in many a court case against retailers claiming they have unlawfully ‘copied designs’, it does mean that the British consumer is for once not being ripped off and can open its purse to remove coins rather than credit cards. And it’s about time to.
