DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

There was a curious-looking guy at the gym today. He wore an Adidas cap, an Adidas logo T-shirt, and Adidas-branded shorts. His shoes, ironically, were Converse.

So, clearly, the guy is a big fan of Adidas — except for their shoes. Which sort of makes me wonder… why does he advertise the brand if he doesn’t like the product? Adidas doesn’t spend a dime figuring out how to increase their market share for T-shirts, shorts, or baseball hats. That is, it’s unlikely this guy was wearing Adidas shorts and shirt and hat because they’re more comfortable or better than competing products. I guess it’s most likely that he was wearing these by coincidence, meaning these three articles happened to cycle to the top of the workout-clothes pile on the same day. Still, I can’t imagine what would possess a guy to acquire an entire outfit of branded apparel, short of a corporate sponsorship.

On a related note, I went shopping for a new belt a few weekends ago. I searched through 200 belts for something suitable: a matte-black leather belt with a silver buckle. The unforseen problem is that belt buckles are a territory long-ago conquered by the marketing schmucks in the fashion world: I couldn’t find a belt that didn’t show some idiot’s name on it. The worst example was a Cardin belt that was beautifully made except for the “pierre cardin” logo on the buckle. Then I noticed that the logo was embossed on a reversible metal widget. “This is great,” I thought; “They’ve made it so I can hide the brand name.” So I flip the little widget around, to find a different Cardin logo on the back. This was just unbelievable — as if their customers are going to get up in the morning and ask themselves, Should I display the ‘PC’ logo or the ‘pierrecardin’ logo today? Hmm, which goes better with my tie?