High price gives jeans the blues
Further to your News Analysis on the jeans market “Falmer’s miseries add to jeans blues” (MW October 22).
It is interesting to read that everyone is quick to blame the slump in jeans sales on such a variety of factors – obscure branding campaigns, the current economic climate, and even the fashion unconscious and ever-popular Jeremy Clarkson.
As someone working in the UK motoring industry I can certainly lay the blame for a lot of ills at the feet of Jeremy Clarkson, but there is one obvious factor the jeans machine in the UK seems to have completely missed – the price of the product.
Recently I returned from the US where I purchased two pairs of Levi’s for $55 – the first pair at $37.50, second pair half price, that approximates to 38 for two pairs (together with a pair of Wranglers for $15 and a couple of newly released CDs at $9.50 dollars – that’s less than seven quid for a new release – each).
This is so typical of foreign companies making hay in the UK while the fashion victims, with seemingly bottomless pockets, fork out an excessive number of pounds in order to be seen as “with it”.
The Americans won’t put up with paying over the odds for goods, yet we in the UK, thanks to the “OK Yar must-have syndrome”, constantly do. We have only ourselves to blame.
Edward Moss
Communications manager retail network
Vauxhall Motors
Luton
Beds
