Branded jeans

Question

I wonder if branded jeans means exactely the same as desiner jeans. Can these two expresions be replaced? Is one of them used more often? Is it correct to say: "Yesterday I bought branded jeans." ?

Thanks in advance.
M&M

Usenet · Accepted Answer

OK, this might get kind of confusing.
"Branded" merchandise is a hip new term that is big is business circles at the moment. The term "branded jeans" is not something that you would use outside of an advertising firm or some related branch of employment. Currently, the term "branded merchandise" is gaining greater currency in the world at large, possibly because branding (which simply means creating, marketing and supporting a brand image over time), is one of the more interesting phenomenon currently being heavily investigated at our finest business schools.

"Branded," in this usage, is what's called in liguisto-speak a back-formation. That is to say that this usage came about from a confusing and semi-literate shift in meaning from the original meaning. "Branding" is what you do to cows and calves to mark them as yours...you put a hot iron forged in a certain form to their skin and burn a symbol into them. Livestock marked in this way is "branded." The same kind of iron is readily applied to wood or leather, forming an indelible mark. That's pretty much how the term came to mean anything that bears a maker's mark of originality on it as a guarantee of quality.
That's how we get from cows and barrels of whiskey to slick ad executives marketing tomorrow's hippest beveraqe. Strangely enough, as anyone who has read Dumas's The Three Musketeers knows, felons were occasionally branded in various Europeans countries. Those were the days...and the aforementioned slick ad executives might take note of it.
Once upon a time and long ago, "designer" jeans were ones designed by a specific designer rather than a large, faceless corporation. If you bought Ralph Lauren or Tommy Hilfiger jeans, you knew the great man himself designed them on his little drawing board and then sent his lackeys off with the plans. Nowadays, when you say "designer jeans", it means any pricey jeans that a corporations smaller than Lee, Wrangler or Levi-Strauss has put out, and I've heard the term extended to any specialty jeans that the big three put out, something like special-edition Levi's with tie-up flies or Lee bellbottoms with spangles.
In about ten years, if the guys who sell us stuff have their way, we may well be buying overpriced work trousers that we proudly call "branded jeans." Until then, it would be wise to stay away from the term.

Branded jeans

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