Prada have launched their 'country of origin' range, highlighting the craftsmanship of countries such as India Japan and Peru, each hand crafted piece will have the little blue 'Prada' label alongside where it was made. For a label that prides itself in making almost all of its garments in Italy, is Prada really highlighting craftsmanship or is the Italian label seeing an easy mark up price?
The India range contains expertly hand woven ballerina pumps and bags, I have to say I am loving the below bags, but would you pay the £1000+ price tag if it wasn't for the label?
There are some great pieces in the collection, but instead of using this as an easy mark up, I think Prada have highlighted the fact that craftmanship in 'developing' countries is undervalued. If the same bag was handmade in Italy people would be cooing about the skill that was involved but say India and the first thing that comes into people's heads is 'cheap' or 'sweat shop'. Yes it might be cheaper to get items made in India but does that mean the person making them is any less talented? The below is hand embroided in the traditional chiquan method which takes years of experience to master so my question to all you readers and tweets is are we discriminating skill based on country of origin?
This is so true, the craft should be looked at first more so than who made it, it takes hours to produce some of these pieces and just because its made in India or China people don't see the work that went into it!!
ReplyDeleteI totally agree, it really should be about the technique and the difficulties to master them that we should appreciate not just look at the label and think 'cheap labor'
ReplyDeleteyes we do, i guess i am also one of them, however I have a handwoven bag I bought from India, I thought it was beautiful but my first thought was it looks great and its really cheap, I didnt take time to appreciate the workmanship it must have taken to create it maybe because our own country manufactures more and even then it comes from somewhere else
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