Belstaff making replica jacket...

[bobjones]

First off, I have to ask. Do you own a Belstaff? If you do, you will know that they are not shoddily-built jackets. If not, how can you claim that the quality is not there unless you have worn one for some period of time? (Not just looked at a friends jacket, for example). I cannot honestly say the Belstaff jackets are better or worse than Aero or Lost Worlds. I own jackets from each of these manufacturers I love them all for different reasons. Belstaff jackets are certainly not poorly constructed jackets by any means.

I am not knocking Belstaff, in the sense saying that their product isn't good - in fact it might be superb. BUT, if Gibson, who manufactures to military specs, can make an excellently constructed (don't own a Gibson, am going by this and some other online forums) for $468, I am not sure about the value offered by a $1,500 Indy. Going back to my economics 101 course, the marginal or incremental increase in quality for the 4x the cost is very hard to justify. It goes back to my Hermes argument, their bag might cost $8,000 b/c they use gold-plated hardware, but does that make it a "better" constructed item, costing 30x what a Tony Perotti bag does? Not sure about that one.

Those who have no qualms about spending the money. Those who have the money. Belstaff has a great reputation and a huge following.

But in segmenting markets, the company has to figure out who to promote their message to, and with a very highly priced movie jacket, the life of a trendy item like this is very short, so they need to figure out who they will promote to come July when the movie hype has passed. At that point they will need to figure out what G&B, Wested, et al have done for 20 years, promote a jacket based upon something other than hype.

For that cost, you more than likely got a heavy FQHH jacket from Aero. My modified Highwayman is my favorite jacket ever. But you have just made the argument that you have no qualms about spending $900 on a leather jacket and it made your friends jaws drop. The way your jaw might have dropped to hear someone else paid $1500 for a Belstaff Indy jacket? The Indy jacket has not been released yet, and you area already claiming it is not "That great."

My point was that several other manufacturers have been selling very well-made product for years at far less cost, and while it might be superbly crafted - I am finding it hard to imagine it being 4x better than a G&B, for instance.

The value of an item is hugely subjective to the buyer. It is worth it to them. That is how these high end fashion items designed by Prada, Armani and the likes sell their wares. Is a $4,000 handbag better than a $40 handbag? Not to me, but if it is worth $4,000 to the purchaser, then the value is justified.

There are no doubt people who believe a porsche 959 is a good value, but they are in the tiniest of minorities. I detest the high priced "fashion labels" like Armani, as most of the cost goes to their marketing machine and hyping, rather than into the product. This is why I love little companies like Aero, much of the cost is going into the jacket itself. THAT'S what I call value.

[michaeljcr]

There are no doubt people who believe a porsche 959 is a good value, but they are in the tiniest of minorities. I detest the high priced "fashion labels" like Armani, as most of the cost goes to their marketing machine and hyping, rather than into the product. This is why I love little companies like Aero, much of the cost is going into the jacket itself. THAT'S what I call value.

I think this hits upon the difficulty of these kinds of comparisons. What each person thinks of as 'value' is entirely subjective past a certain point. Once you've established that any given product is of a certain quality of manufacturing and will do the job you want it to, the rest is just down to personal opinion. These days Belstaff are a high quality, high end fashion company aimed at people with larger than average disposable income, who for the most part want to look fashionable, rather than the average person who's going to see the next Indiana Jones movie.

Indy will be hot news for the Summer and I seriously doubt there will be many of these jackets left in stores after then. You certainly can't get the Hero Jacket from War of the Worlds in shops any more and they are much sought after items as far as I'm aware.

From my subjective point of view, their products seem very good quality (certainly the bag I own if superb, although it certainly cost a fair bit for my budget!) and the brand itself already has a rich history and heritage. So, while they are certainly not the same company that produced motorcycle clothing a few years ago at much more reasonable prices, because of their very deliberate marketing and product style they have no need to target the same kind of customer base as US Wings or Aero. They know their market, they deliberately make their product exclusive in both price and availability and the only thing I think they could learn, on a purely business level, from the likes of Aero and US Wings is that they could probably sell even more items if you could actually find one to buy!

For myself, I'll look forward to seeing the new jacket, probably be pretty annoyed on general principal that they're designed so overweight types such as myself will never fit into one, while at the same time being secretly envious of all you skinny people out there. After that, I'll go and climb into my Aero Barnstormer and challenge the nearest Belstaff wearing person to a jacket deathmatch!