A couple years ago I bought two pair of Eddie Bauer jeans. They were just normal jeans. They fit fine, they were comfortable. Within a year, the inner seams had ripped out of both pair.
If I go to the store and pick up a normal gallon of milk, it will be milk that came from a cow injected with growth hormones. I have to pay extra if I don’t want my morning bowl of cereal to have something in common with Manny Ramirez and Big Papi.
Two and a half years ago we moved into the house in which we currently reside. We purchased a moderately-priced and well-reviewed washer and dryer. Today I often have to set the dryer to run a second cycle in order to dry my clothes completely.
I was talking with Meg the other day about the quality of food. She sighed and said, “Why do we have to pay a fortune for stuff to not be crap?”
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The standards of quality have dropped. This is a big theme in today’s market. Quality, hand-crafted goods are hot, and they sell at a premium. The focus now is on value. As we decide to pass on cheaply made goods in search of something better, the impulse may be to pay top dollar indiscriminately: buy everything organic, pay for designer labels on our clothes, settle only for a Mercedes Benz. How do I discern between quality and luxury?
Solid, High Quality and Luxury
What’s the difference between solid and high quality? Take two bags that I own as an example: Beckel Canvas’s Possibilities Bag, and Duluth Pack’s Ammo Bag. I did an in-depth post on Beckel Canvas and went into a fair amount of detail here.
Both bags are made of durable canvas, sewn by a human being in the United States, and have solid heavy-duty zippers. The difference is found in the details. The Ammo Bag features piping along the edges, leather tassels on the zippers, and brass snaps to snap shut the leather handle. Whereas the Possibilities bag stitching is on the inside (no piping) and the leather handle strap is what appears to be slightly lower quality leather with a velcro fastening.
Here are a couple photos to show the difference.
Beckel Possibilities Bag:
Duluth Pack Ammo bag:
There’s nothing wrong with the Beckel bag, it brings great value, especially at the lower price point. It is a solid bag. The Duluth Pack raises value through the finishings, but it shows in the price tag as well. You can move up the ladder to Filson, Ally Cappillino, Porter (via h(y)r collective, they’re hard to find sometimes) and on up the line. Depending on your financial means and intended use, any of these options could fall into that sweet spot of high value for your dollar.
Somewhere on the upper end of this scale you’re going to enter into luxury. Luxury, in my opinion, can be defined as an excess amount of craft, as seen here with KMW’s hand-dyed 1980’s. While an argument can be made for the regular KMW 1980’s as high quality jeans, the hand-dyed context exclusive run falls squarely under the title of luxury.
Another form of luxury is to spend indiscriminately because of a perceived value. You see this with hybrid cars (Escalade hybrid? Give me a break.) and organic food. There are some foods that are grown with a lot of pesticides (and are consequently worse for you). These include fruits such as peaches, apples, strawberries, cherries, and imported grapes and it’s worth your money to buy these organic. Other fruits–bananas, oranges, mangoes, and pineapple–are grown with less pesticides. Paying for organic bananas is a luxury because the amount you’re paying brings in very little increased value, making them an excessive expense.
Buying the most expensive item rarely brings the highest value. Maximizing your dollar is all about finding the highest value available. Sometimes this means skimping on (or skipping entirely) less important areas.
These same principles can be applied to film and video production. Stay tuned for Craft Part II: Video Production.
Tags: philosophy, quality
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According to this RadioWest podcast we can blame it all on F. W. Woolworth http://bit.ly/160giL
Price trumps value. Relative to income, housing costs more than it used to, but other things might not. Maybe because of consumer credit it’s easier to buy a lot of cheap stuff all at once instead of saving for quality goods over time. Retailers take advantage and it becomes a cycle.
It’s hard to resist furnishing a house at Ikea instead of just one room at the same price.
William–
Thanks for your comment. That was a great RadioWest. I miss Doug Fabrizio. He’s about the only thing I miss from Utah, except the good friends.
Very interesting to think about the way our emotions and thought processes affect our spending. Thanks for tipping me off to it.
Thank you for your blog entry! Well put! We have been in business for 128 years and in the same factory since 1911, each bag is hand-signed and the craftsmanship is guaranteed for life! I am following you on Twitter, please follow us too!