Ever get that incredibly depressed feeling in a shopping centre, i have tried to nail exactly what it is about the shopping centre energy that's so dark, and i think that its not one specific thing in isolation but a major cluster fuck of sinister things occurring.
1.I feel like you're reminded throughout your shopping experience of the homogenius look that you're going to potentially walk away with, its in the advertising, the way you might be influenced or manipulated by alleged sales and in the clothing that people have already purchased and are walking around wearing. Yes, companies are charging people for clothes and then people inadvertently advertise their brand for the term of there depressingly short fashion cycle.
2. Why is it so cheap? Everyone knows about the elephant in the room of sub standard working/pay conditions. But there maybe a whole plethora of other reasons why, maybe the quality is substandard, or a large company wants to remove it from its inventory creating room for a more viable faster moving or higher profit margin line of products ( yes the items sale price does not necessarily relate to the wholesale price ) , i think the major problem with this is it creates a situation where people buy allot more than they require as they enter into the false economy of snagging a bargain.
3. I feel like there is no room in this expensive retail space for anything that does not either have a massive profit margin, or is fast moving enough to offset the items lower profit margin. Some of your money may go to the manufacturer but surely a huge amount is going to the shopping centre itself, and maybe not so much into the quality or care taken to make your clothing/jewellery :( :(
Wow thats all quite depressing, and a little bit ranty , but cathartic for us , so what do we do to try and counteract this mass produced conspicuous consumption boredom.
1. Our limited edition pieces that move to manufacturing are rigorously tested for quality wearability and design before creating any type of tool or investment in the fabrication process. Accessory Emergency tries to stay outside of trends and insidious fashion cycles and so quality is incredibly important as we hope that our customers can enjoy these pieces for many years to come and they become wardrobe staples.
2. We up-cycle and recycle whenever possible. Accessory Emergency does not up-cycle or recycle anything and everything, however if end of roll, manufacturing refuse or second hand material becomes available in the right quality and of course a general aesthetic that is loved by our design team, we grab it. The other great benefit of up-cycling is we end up with more unique items as often these materials are serendipitously acquired and are never available again.
3. We don't mass produce anything in the range, it’s just too boring for us and you, i would die of becoming an un-cool robot ( not the sexy kind of robot like Sorayama http://abduzeedo.com/node/76263 ) if i had to make every fabric neckpiece the same, argh, so we are often designing as we are making things and the designs will often inform us of how they want to be put together, cheeky things.
4. We make custom designs at our customers request, it could be some custom colour inserts for the Mondri only one pieces or adding those pieces to the mimof range, or as complex as a large fabric piece for a special event or just because.
In short there is nothing dreary about an Accessory Emergency design , and your unlikely to ever run into anyone else with the exact same Accessory Emergency piece, or if you do then you need to make a new special friend with amazeballs taste xxx
