Brand name clothing & your tween/teen

Avatar for onehappymama
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2005
Brand name clothing & your tween/teen
22
Sat, 11-04-2006 - 3:09pm
On Thursday, I took a friend of mine to her doctors office in Charlotte. (About 2 hours away from here) Anyway...on the way home, we stopped by Concord Mills (a large 'outlet' mall). Quinn (my son, 13 yo) needed a heavier jacket & had told me he wanted a denim sherpa lined one or a Carhartt one. It's very unusual for him to request a certain style. I'm not sure where he saw this style at. While at the mall, I went into the Gap store & they had a denim sherpa jacket he wanted. It was $30 (which is fair). I bought him that & I saw a Gap hoody with colors that he likes. It was on sale, so I got it for him too.
He loved the jacket, but flat told me "Thanks for the shirt, but I don't like it." Of course I asked him why (it didn't matter too much to me, I was just curious so I won't make the same mistake). He said he just didn't like it. Then finally I figured out that he does not like brand names on his shirts. I've never thought about it, but his shirts do not have brand names on them, except he does have 2 or 3 Element tee-shirts. Element is the brand of skateboard that he has. He also has an Alien Workshop. (again, skateboard company) He said that if he's going to wear a shirt with the company name, they ought to pay him for advertising it for them. LOL! I thought that was pretty funny. There is a Gap store at a couple of the malls in our area & I plan to return the sweatshirt.
I just thought it was different because I've noticed that at his school a lot of the kids wear 'brands'. Albercombie & Finch (or whatever), Gap, Apostrophe (I think) & some others come to mind.
The way Quinn dresses is his own style. He has several rock artist & rock band tee-shirts (Jimi, Led Zep, Kiss & Greenday). He has 2 or 3 Monty Python tee-shirts. A lot of the kids have never even heard of Monty. (shock!) He has a few skateboard tees. And tee-shirts with guitars on them. He has a few tees with skulls on them. And he has a couple of Stewie tee's (Family Guy's weird baby) His favorite thing to wear when it's cool is a long sleeve tee-shirt with a short sleeve tee shirt over it. (Common style, I like to wear them too) He also has a couple of work shirts by Dickies that he wears.
As far as jackets, he has khaki brown cord jacket with a BAM logo (Bam Mergera) patch along with an electric guitar patch & a Thrasher logo patch. No one else in school has anything like it. He's had several boys ask were he got it. I 'fixed' it up for him. (I had a mother to call me last week asking about the jacket. She said that her son has asked for one several times & she had not seen it. I told her to get the jacket off Landend's Outlet on-line & order patches from Ebay, but asked her to please not duplicate the ones Quinn has. LOL) He also has another jacket. It's a sweatshirt zipper type that we paid $8 for. It's black w/a scorpion on the back. And another solid hunter green one.
As far as shoes go, he likes Vans sneakers. I try to buy them when we are my brothers in Orlando (there's a Vans outlet there). They are tough, hard wearing shoes. It's the only shoe that he will outgrown before they wear out. (Nikes & etc. wear out first with him) I will buy him a pair of high top sneakers for basketball though.
I like that Quinn likes to look different, but one thing that drives me nuts is he does not like to dress up. He doesn't like button up shirts unless it's a work shirt. He doesn't like sweaters (too hot) So, occasionally we have a disagreement this.
Anyway...what sort of style does your teen have? Are they a 'brand' person?

Pages

Avatar for 2boyz4us
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-25-2003
Sat, 11-04-2006 - 3:22pm

My almost 13 year old loves athletic brands such as Nike, Jordan (also Nike company) so those are the things he wears. Mostly it is just long basketball shorts (nike) and a t-shirt for him. He likes athletic t-shirt, but refuses to wear anything that has a cute saying/cute graphic on it.

My 9-1/2 year old DS is fairly picky about clothes. He likes certain styles but doesn't really matter about the brand. He wears t-shirts and likes the "skater" look too. He don't have any specific skater t-shirts but I do hear him talk about Bam and Element. Oh, I forgot he recently got a couple of Hawk shirts that he likes. He also likes the distressed jean look-my older son hates that look-LOL.

 
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-09-2005
Sat, 11-04-2006 - 3:39pm

Caitie (age 11) is not really into fashion yet. She shops mainly at Lasenza Girl, Northern Getaway, & Jacob Junior. Where the kids in her class are beginning to look into the brand names and shopping at the teen stores rather than kids, she prefers wearing t-shirts with horses on them or cute sayings, loose fitting pants, etc. A bit of it has to do with her size. She is the smallest in her class and so wouldn't fit into the "teen" stores- American Eagle, Garage, etc., so she sticks with what she's familiar with.

-Nikki


                             
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-26-2003
Sat, 11-04-2006 - 5:01pm
No real desire for brands here. In fact she is sort of anti-brand. She was rather disappointed that a purse she bought was Tommy Hilfiger. She was just glad she could take the tag off. LOL At her school she told me it is the boys who are much more brand conscious and have to have the right name on the T-shirt. Usually related to soccer or some sports brand. My ex is also very against wearing a company name on his chest since they are getting advertising that HE paid for. So I don't think its an uncommon sentiment. There are just fewer T-shirts for girls with names on them and as for jeans and stuff, she could care less as long as they fit.

Photobucket  

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-04-2006
Sat, 11-04-2006 - 6:35pm
My DD Ashley (12) has gotten some what into fashion this past year. She shops a lot at Abercrombie and Fitch and Aeropostale.
Right now she likes wearing zip down hodded sweatshirts with jeans, but she also lieks wearing skirts with leggings under them.
iVillage Member
Registered: 09-01-2006
Sat, 11-04-2006 - 9:28pm
Hannah likes Hollister and American Eagle but lately all I see her in is Jeans and her school sweatshirt. :)







iVillage Member
Registered: 09-26-2003
Sat, 11-04-2006 - 11:51pm

EM loves clothes with the brand names on them, as long as the brand names are "cool", LOL!


She hates turtle necks, refuses to wear them and always has!


Powered by CGISpy.com
Avatar for cathiann
iVillage Member
Registered: 03-27-2003
Sun, 11-05-2006 - 10:50am

Luke doesn't really care yet about brand names.

Surviving Middle & High School
iVillage Member
Registered: 01-06-2000
Sun, 11-05-2006 - 12:49pm

Meredith is like your Quinn in regards to writing on clothing. I never had her wear clothing with words on it, and she has accepted that as her own rul e as well. Sometimes, frankly, it can be pretty hard to find things. It annoys me no end to find a nice shirt or whatever and then realized they've ruined it by blazing their company name or some odd saying across the front. Wish they'd sell them as seperate iron on decals or something for the people who want them.

She is really very not in the main stream as to her clothing, I suppose.
She also doesn't really like jeans.

So, to school - - she wears a lot of leggings, running pants - basically knit pants with elastic waists. In warmer weather she has dressy longish shorts in a variety of colors, and knit capris in various colors. For tops, "dressy" t-shirts or polo type shirts when the weather is warmer, long sleeve t's or turtle neck weight type shirts most often. This year she got a few pants/jackets sets that seemed to be popular.

For church she always dresses up in a dress, tights, and dress shoes.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-12-2005
Mon, 11-06-2006 - 8:49am
My girls love clothes with words on it(not brands but happy bunny type stuff). Luckily, they're not allowed to wear that stuff at their school. They aren't really brand conscious yet but they all have their own styles and stick to them. My 11 yr old has a quirky style. She loves to wear scrunchies as bracelets and ankle bracelets along with a chunky watch on her wrist. She doesn't really care what other kids are wearing. She just wears what she wants. My 8 yr old is very, very picky about clothes. She loves girly stuff and except for a couple of pairs of jeans, she has all long frothy skirts that are all in pink. This year most of her wardrobe is in pink and everything has at least some pink in it. Next year, it'll probably be a different color. She won't wear cotton or corderoy. Things have to be just the way that she likes them or she won't even consider it. Blake is kind a preppy with a twist type of girl. She loves pleated skirts and dress pants of all different colors. In their school, they have to wear dress pants from 3rd grade on. They are only allowed to wear jeans on Friday's. Blake is only in 2nd grade but perfers to wear dress pants anyway. I'm hoping that none of them get caught up in the brand game because most of those clothes are so expensive and I already spend a small fortune on their clothes.
Image hosted by Photobucket.com
iVillage Member
Registered: 12-28-2004
Mon, 11-06-2006 - 9:39am

Isaiah is not very brand conscious, as long as the clothes are cool! I could buy him a Walmart shirt and he'd wear it, as long as it was nice looking. He wears GAP sweatshirts, Abercrombie tees...whatever.


When we talk about sports geear or sneakers, that's whole different ball game. he is very particular about what he will/will not wear.






Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting





Pages