I remember my first piece of ‘designer jewellery’ – a sterling silver heart tag charm bracelet from Tiffany & Co. I had gone to Milan on holiday, and literally everywhere I went, there was a tall, slim Milanese lady donning one and a Louis Vuitton speedy. I remember returning home and starting a Tiffany bracelet fund; a few months later, it was on my wrist. I can’t remember how much that bracelet cost, but it couldn’t have been too much if I could afford it by saving up my pocket money.
Just a few weeks ago, Tiffany & Co. launched the Tiffany Titan by Pharrell Williams, and to be honest, I was utterly shocked and taken aback by the exorbitant price tags on the pieces. Now, everyone knows that when you buy designer anything, you’re paying a lot of extra money for the name and the design, but to be honest, charging anyone £20,500 for a mostly titanium necklace with just two gold links and a small smattering of diamonds is criminal.
I mean, titanium is so cheap that you can buy it for a few cents by the kilo – why on earth would Tiffany & Co. think it’s okay to charge their clients so much for something worth less than silver?
The problem with buying items like this with next to no inherent value is that firstly and perhaps most importantly, if you do come to re-sell, you’ll probably not even be able to collect a fraction of what you’ve paid, and secondly, the more that people continue not to get clued up about the things they’re buying, the more that designer brands are feeling emboldened to scam us.
While we all know that designer anything carries a premium, there should be a line that fashion houses don’t cross. The truth is that while it was somewhat easy to lure millennials like me down dark, consumerist alleyways five to ten years ago, thanks to the billions spent on advertising in the eighties and nineties, we are now tired of seeing greedy, baseless price increases every few months.
Many of us have been shopping for decades now, so we remember the before and after of things, and no one likes feeling cheated. As for Gen Z, they’re all about authenticity and social impact, so corporations are going to be able to get away with a lot less than they have in the past.
I won’t forget Tiffany & Co’s latest attempt to grab my money, and neither should you. The smarter we shop, the less room there will be for us to be treated like fools.
