What’s your first reaction after you read the title?
So, I was flooding my twitter timeline with my random minds after I read that H&M being a trending topic and when I had found out, that brand become a TT because it opened it’s very first store in Singapore and I was like “what the hell?!” because it’s sort of overrated and I realized that actually, middle-class Indonesians who live in big cities must be over-acting too if its opened in; for example, Jakarta.
Since I had been back from Germany, I saw those chain-stores there aren’t have any pride-feelings to gave to their buyers after bought their things in there, while in Indonesia; well, I will take Jakarta and my own surroundings plus some people around me as the comparison for describe “what’s the different between Germans and Indonesian to spend their money, in context shopping style?” people in Jakarta, could have a very pride-feelings for just bought Zara, Topshop, Promod, Forever 21, etc. With so much higher price than in Europe or USA. For example, I bought a H&M T-Shirt for just 5 Euro while I really sure, it could costs about 300.000 Rupiah (25 Euro) here. One of my friends also bought a Zara bag for 15 Euro (which a sale item and possibly a last season’s bag), while her friend saw that bag in Jakarta costs for 900.000 Rupiah (85 Euro) and with that price, it’s possibly that the bag is a new arrival bag.
Don’t you get the point? Now, I will tell you. As an Indonesian, I feel embarrassed because thinking of (most) Indonesian people could feel really proud for just having chain-stores’ brands things, chain-stores (of course) only have mass-products (which are not exclusive at all), and Indonesians bought those mass-products with exclusive price, and they felt proud about it. To see and to observe how Indonesian people spend their money (for shopping); they just take care about brands, not the things’ quality. Since they have been crazy for those chain-stores goods, they are feeling (more) proud to have a one million Rupiah Zara bag at the half price of local bag, which probably more exclusive and has more good quality because it might be handmade or else. People here, feel proud to have something because of the brands, because of they could showed (off) how much they afforded, how much they (maybe) earned. Yes, they’re absolutely had been played by capitalism. They don’t care the quality at all, as long as it has big brands, people know what you wear, and people will say “whoa!” after they know what brand it is. This is about prestige, and to spend money just for prestige; even you pushed yourself to get it, in fact you actually can’t afford it, is mainly usual now for Jakartans. As if, a person who really pushed himself to buy a 400.000 plain T-Shirt because the ‘brand’ is Topshop and he actually just earned 2.500.000 million Rupiah per month. For me, it is obviously silly to the max.
According to me, branding is also necessary. Had been live in Public Relations world, I can’t just let myself to not care for what I wear. For some people, I admitted that they must brand-aware like people who working in media or fashion industry field or might be company’s representatives and so on. I just gave you my random mind; how could almost Indonesians (who live in big cities) have these chain-stores mindset? Please, ask yourself 😉
Karaleva's Crib 
wow you’re an idiot! everybody likes to wear famous brand fashion not just Indonesian
whether like or not, i was talking about capitalism ruling human’s concept of whats good, whats not. branding eh?
Your English is terrible, my cat is probably better than you at English…………HAHA
such a lucky cat it is. be grateful that you are much better that you can said my english is terrible. most of the people probably too busy to get foods for their family than learning english as good as you could dear 🙂
say not said… most people not most of the people.. add are before probably… to get foods for their family?
Thanks for the grammar-nazi act 😀
true!
LOL I admitted it. The blog is in my interest to learn English. Better keep talk than just be quiet, at least for me :p
Also.. As an Indonesian, I think you’re right. Sometimes people just think about the brand, and not about the quality, and I also realize the differences between the prices. But as someone who have lived in Germany, I also can’t wait for them to open a branch at least in Jakarta 🙂
as i don’t wanna be a hypocrite, I’m also excited to think that they will open their branch in Jakarta. just hoping that the price wont be three times higher than in Germany and with such qualities; it isn’t worth it. think about 5 Euro dress i bought there, and it could be like 499.000 here? hell no. i prefer local brands, good enough and some of them are in affordable price. do support Indonesia products 🙂
lol, ja, you’re right, can’t wait to see the prices 😀
Hi, salam kenal. Berhubung bahasa inggris saya gak bagus jadi pake bahasa indonesia aja kali ya. Saya setuju sekali sama kamu, walau brand itu penting untuk citra diri tapi kalo sampe diporotin sama brand wah tekor juga. Sebagai TKI yang lagi kerja di Berlin, menurut saya H&M mah biasa aja bahkan harganya hampir mirip dengan matahari atau toko baju retail di mall ternama di Indonesia. Cuma emang bedanya adalah di desainnya, mereka punya lini desain yang up to date dan keren-keren. kalo di Berlin H&M itu singkatan dari hemat & murah mungkin di Indonesia singkatannya jadi Harganya Mahal…LOL
salam kenal juga masnyah. enggris saya juga ngga bagus, yang penting usaha gini2 tujuannya kan buat belajar juga hehe.
waktu saya disana, saya demen banget ke H&M, model keren kualitas agak lebih bagus daripada ITC atau Tanahabang & harganya cocok. Berhubung di indo harga baju2 ritel itu ngga wajar, yaa balik lagi aja ke ITC lah :p
H&M itu punya fitting yang bagus, dan itu sangat penting bagi beberapa orang, contohnya seperti saya yang punya badan bisa dibilang sangat kurus, so H&M for good in Jaktown, mudah2an pesaingan terdekatnya Uniqlo bisa buka juga di jaktown
2 thumbs for u. Hanya sedikit dari sekian banyak wanita menggunakan otak dlm berbelanja; namun saya berharap kedepannya Indonesia akan lebih banyak wanita yg smart dalam berbelanja
Hi, I kind of agree with you. I hate the facts that these chain stores are marking up almost 300% of their original prices here in KL&JKT. That’s why, luckily for me I can always order from my friends who live in central Europe so I don’t have to spend a bomb. I currently live in KL which has more expensiver prices than in Indo. On the 22nd of September, H&M will be opening their 2 stores. Oh boy, I am soo damn anxious to see the pricetags. LOL!
I dont know about in KL but for Jakarta, let’s blame the government and Mitra Adi Perkasa for that so-high marked-up prices!
So please kindly updated me for the pricetags xD
Sorry, maybe I need to give some extra here … actually to produce something that requires a good quality really need high cost, material chosen, not only in terms of course but note again that the product safety is in priority …. there’s is a lot of point need to review again about ” Quality ” it’s not just how we look good but how to customer feel comfortable to ware…so in my opinion ( High quality = high cost , low quality = low cost ) .
fully agreed with you but in my case, I found that chain stores especially like H&M has a so-so to bad quality. When I was in Germany, the price is matched for the things I would get but I dare to bet that in Indonesia, people would pay so much higher for the quality H&M has; if you know what I mean.
Nevermind those people who were criticizing your english because they had nothing better to do or nothing else to discuss than doing it. You are so absolutely right. Spot on. I am an Indonesian myself but I have live abroad in over 7 years – every time I return home for holiday I get surprised more and more on how “brand conscious” Indonesians are, even more than they should be.
This is also the reason why people are toting KW bags when everyone knows that it’s probably fake (when you don’t make that much money in the first place anyway). The flashier the brand, the more they sell. It’s ridiculous.
Came across your blog when I was googling on the topic 🙂
Yeay thanks for your visit! Probably this thing is something that we cant really avoid of in developing country.
Sometimes I think when I see those people who brought these KW bags are wrong, but probably they’re not that wrong hmm whats your opinion? 🙂
Some of the people I know really don’t know the difference between KW and original. So today I was just posted a photo of the queue line for H&M grand opening in Jakarta, and one of my friend commented “those people are stupid to stand in such a long queue line. I just got a h&m shirt from an online shop only for IDR 50k”. Well…
Anyway even though this post is about H&M opening in Singapore, I would like to comment that the opening in Jakarta is way overrated. People started to queue since 6.30 (I dont know if this valid, heard it from a friend) and the pre-grand opening the night before was attended by 4000 person (read it from detik.com or something).
IT IS WAY TOO OVERRATED! I dont know whats wrong with these people. Heard from a friend who works there, there were some people queued since 5AM and still got no. 37 for the line. They were giving out 1mio voucher for the 1st queue. Oh people.
Karena saya juga b.ing ga terlalu bagus jd b.indo aj ya.
Saya bingung dgn org indo yg terlalu berpikir brand, karena byk koq barang2yg bagus walaupun ga branded, dan kenyataannya menurut suami saya yg kebutulan WNA di negaranya Zara dan sebagainya itu barang murahan or biasa aja ga branded, di negara hasil karya buatan tangan harganya jauuuhhhhhh lebih mahal dan lebihhhh dihargai.. jadi utk orang Indonesia mari kita kita renungkan lagi deh..
The only h&m items that match between its price and quality i found is in paris.. seriously..
really? H&M’s quality really sucks anyway -_-