[ESSAY]Going for the look

People nowadays would get influenced by others’ looking. Because of this, the market would aim for the way we view on their products and therefore to change their way of selling them. Marshall Cohen, a senior industry analyst, has stated his view on the market value. He states that companies have the right and they are actually hiring people by the way they look.  

Because of how companies and stores out there know our mind well enough, they have full of well-looking sales. That’s the way they do to impress us and to catch our attention. Just like when we go to shop at Abercrombie & Fitch, we will always see tall, pretty, and skinny sales and tons of ads. The reason of them doing this is pretty obvious. First, they want to attract people to visit their stores, by that they have different kinds of images in or outside of their store. After having people to actually go in the store, there will be these good looking sales that are wearing their own clothing and it looks really good on them. Then it’s possible to make people want to buy their clothes because they think it will looks nice on themselves too.

“If you see an attractive person working in the store wearing Abercrombie clothes, it makes you want to wear it, too,” said Matthew Sheehey, a high school senior from Orland Park, a Chicago suburb.

This quote proves how young teenagers get influenced and fashion became one of the biggest thing for us. We want to dress nice to impress other people, not some old folks’ style of dressing.

Stuff being worn by popular stars or beautiful models would always be hot items that people would love and want to get. This happened to me, too. There is this star over in Taiwan and his nick is Alien Wong. He’s a singer and he also made his own brand call AES(Alien Evolution Studio.) I started to like him because his songs are pretty good. Then I started to watch his drama and I noticed about his own brand, AES. He designs T-shirts, jackets, backpack, etc. These stuff that he designed are pretty stylish and it looks really cool. After seeing all those t-shirt and stuff, I really wanted to get them because it looks awesome, well at least if they’re on him, yes. While I’m writing up this essay, I ask myself if it was the designs that caught my attention, or if it’s because the star that caught my attention to be interested of the brand?

Furthermore when there is a brand that’s very popular and being commonly worn, it makes other people also want to have it, too. This doesn’t only happens in clothing store but also can exist in other stuff. But however when most of your friends have either some clothes or accessories from the same store, it makes you want to purchase something as well in there. I think this is also why there is the differences of prices from different brands. One reason is, of course, the quality of the product. The other reason is I think of how these companies are getting bigger and bigger. Their market value has increased to worth more. For example, T-shirts from Hollister and AF are pretty much the same, but however it’s cheaper if you get stuff from Hollister.

Related the point that I just stated above, I met a friend that I haven’t seen in a while at San Francisco 2 weeks ago. He’s kind of rich and his girlfriend was telling him that she was going to Urban Outfitters to buy a present for her friend. After she told him this, my friend said, “What? Urban’s kinda cheap.” When I heard of that I was kind of shocked. In my opinion Urban Outfitter isn’t really cheap, but it might be true in the view of “rich people?” I mean there are still nice clothes and cool stuff that I found kinda special in Urban Outfitters. But one thing that I realized is that I don’t usually see good-looking sales at Urban Outfitters. Could that possibly influence the thought of my friend? Stuff from H&M is pretty affordable(cheap?) too and he went there to look for a suit. Why is he not thinking that H&M is “cheap” if we compare the two stores, the price isn’t big of a difference.

Meanwhile that quote sort of brought me to think further about the market and the companies. I know someone that only buys stuff in Abercrombie & Fitch and I have never seen him wearing clothes from other stores like American Eagle, Hollister, etc. He is also kind of rich and when he has money, he chose to buy stuff only from Abercrombie because he thinks it’s nicer than other clothes store. I’m not saying if any of these stores are doing a bad job comparing to others. But every store still try to do stuff to impress people. Abercrombie and Hollister make you feel very relaxing once you walk in with some chill music, dim lights and it also smells good. Most of the store will always have some employees to stand at the front door to say welcome. If we pay close attention we can see that these people along with the sales and cashiers are mostly with pretty faces. That is understandable because they are working at the store and they need to provide a good image for their employer.

The way companies hire people by look is absolutely acceptable. They need to make profits and as long as stuff that they do are not against people’s right, I think it’ll be fine. Let’s say if you’re the CEO of a huge clothing store, you don’t want to randomly pick someone to represent the image of your store. I’m pretty sure if models are having a bad-looking face, no one would pay attention to it. If their standard of hiring people is only having a good-looking face and it doesn't require any job experiences, it wouldn’t be surprise to me.