People, particularly Nigerians, are so fond of the ‘Keeping up with the Joneses’ attitude where people just want to act like they live the good life and make people believe it too. With social media now a huge deal, this attitude has been further emphasized with ‘slay queens’ everywhere and people just seeking attention by doing all sorts of things ‘for the gram’. In a bid to further convince followers and haters on the ‘good life’ narrative, designer brands a.k.a designers are flaunted everywhere through clothing, accessories, etc. And don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for them.
The part that worries and riles me is the part that has people putting on fake designer clothing or accessories to pass as the real thing, and now make it worse by adding some really funny captions. Some, not ALL of these people cannot even afford a box of pizza and ice cream from Domino’s and Cold Stone and they will now be putting on fake Gucci and colouring their black bottoms into “red bottoms”.
A picture of Nollywood actress, Tonto Dikeh, made the rounds on the internet some months ago for rocking a fake Fendi T-shirt and she suffered so many hate comments from fans for trying to rock a Fendi T-shirt like other celebrities and not having the money to buy an original one and so ended up buying a fake one. These hate comments were from people who do the same thing every single day. Guilty of the exact same thing they were insulting the lady over.
Is it by force? No!!! It is absolutely okay to put on regular clothing. There is NOTHING uncool about not owning a Hermès bag. Buy a regular good bag worth 7 to 10k, rather than buy a bag of 25k and in the end, it’s still fake. Some people will say that fake has grade, and they have a point but truthfully speaking, at the end of the day, none of us has the original; just a more expensive fake.
Kudos to those who buy the original items which by the way, are not for the financially fainthearted. Heck, if I had good money too, I’d probably get me some designers as well but life is what it is. So since it’s not guys, PLEASE, stop passing it off as original. Have a good time with your quality, first-grade “regular” clothes, work hard and believe God for more money to buy the actual designers.
Article by Soomto Ajanma
