The Brand Called Kit

During the late 90s, I was pretty obsessed with all things Fast Company and especially reverent of Tom Peters who, among other things, wrote a book called The Brand You and spoke about developing a personal/professional brand. All of these thoughts dovetailed nicely with my tendency to think about how my material belongings (and every word that came out my mouth) did or didn't accurately define my personality. As usual, my self-involvement is so, so apparent in retrospect.

This behavior came crashing down around me sometime in 2001 when my (formerly) Mac-using, BMW-driving self watched Best in Show. The second I saw Parker Posey and Michael Hitchcock (the yuppies with the Busy Bee dog) tell the story of how they met...in Starbucks...with their Macs, I knew I had to stop. Just because I had a Mac did not make me Carrie Bradshaw and I'm still embarrassed that I ever thought it did.

But it took me back this morning when my brother emailed me that he'd been thinking about what he wore to the gym last night as a sort of autobiographical statement. He was wearing UVA Law shorts and a Bush/Cheney shirt...which clearly says "overpaid, pretentiously academic and conservative" (just kidding).

He's right, though, but only to a certain extent. Whether or not we live in a marketing-driven society, our material belongings tell part of our story. This is especially true for clothes and especially true for gym clothes. I go to a women's gym that, except for the obvious fact that it is all women, is a fairly diverse environment. And because we're all wearing our gym clothes, it is painfully easy to identify the former sorority girls, the young rich wives, the lesbians. Most of the time, it's clear just from the writing on the t-shirt (though the young rich wives don't wear t-shirts...they wear adorable coordinated outfits - and have great haircuts).

But that's as far as it goes. Just like my Mac laptop didn't make me Carrie Bradshaw and my brother's gym outfit doesn't make him Lillian BeVier, wearing a 1995 sorority t-shirt to my gym doesn't condemn me to a particular stereotype in itself.

I guess that's part of what I missed back in my "brand called Kit" days...the nuance. That the concept of "brand" doesn't have to be superficial and play to stereotype.

I need to think more about this, though. Because the Starbucks/Mac people mocked in Best in Show have totally reemerged as the cult of the iPod, yet somehow that's more acceptable? Not to say that I am anti-brand or have any ethical problems with the way Apple builds their brands - I think they're brilliant marketers and clearly back up their message with solid products. But still - it is so easy to lose the nuance.