"Ready?" "In there, boys." "Once upon a time, there were four identical brothers with four very different t-shirts." "The t-shirts were all nice, only one of them was saying a lot more than the others." "Who would you think would be the, the best at sport?" "Em, that one." "Whose team would you want to be on?" "Who would you think is the coolest?" "Who would you most want to be friends with?" "How can that little swooshie thing mean so much?" "That's how powerful a fashion superbrand is." "I'm not talking about any old brand here." "These are the huge, global organisations with turnover in billions, who've not only invaded our wardrobe..." "Ralph Lauren, head to toe." "..they've invaded our upbringing..." "What are the consequences of having the wrong brand?" "You'd be picked on." "..and our minds." "They have managed to tap into an emotion that is central to our lives." "In hard times, we just keep buying from them." "I'm going to find out the secret of their power." "There's just one problem." "What do you think, Alex, your fashion choice says about you?" "Er, I think it... it says that I like a bargain." "You see, up till now, fashion brands have kind of passed me by, so I've got quite a lot to learn." "So you're the fashion editor of the Daily Mail." "Fashion director." "Fashion director." "Of the Daily Telegraph, please!" "Sorry, Daily Telegraph." "But I'm determined to reach the superbrands in their most intimate places." "Is this the tomb of Adi Dassler?" "Try it out." "This is the international headquarters of Diesel." "They might try and stop me." "It's fine without the cameras." "Oh." "You can walk in." "Nothing happens without the camera." "But I'll follow their global trail and I'll find out how they get so deeply into our minds." "That's one of her pleasure centres of the brain lighting up when she sees the expensive handbags, but not when she sees the cheap ones." "You've got to have it or you're going to die." "So, let's dive into the frenzy of desire." "These things are gold-plated Chanel." "It's about £100 to hire this one." "Hire it?" "Yeah." "Because I've gone native in the world of fashion." "So, from Abercrombie  Fitch to the A-list Burberry Show, come on, superbrands, show me what you're made of!" "I've never thought that I needed brands, because if I want to make a statement about who I am," "I've got jumpers." "A jumper to say, "Hey, he's a lot of fun"." "A jumper to say, "Welcome to summer"." "A heavier weight for the winter." "It's raspberry, look at me!" "No logos, look." "Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein." "Nike." "Chanel." "Versace." "Diesel." "Abercrombie  Fitch." "I'm totally immune to brands." "Yet in the bottom of my wardrobe is a pair of Adidas trainers." "How did Adidas get into my wardrobe?" "Why didn't I buy Nike, why didn't I buy Converse?" "Why did I go for a branded trainer in the first place?" "I mean, they all do the same thing, but why do they all feel so different?" "What are they doing to our minds?" "I think it's about time somebody went to the trouble of finding out." "HE MOUTHS" "But it's big, the world of fashion, so, where to start?" "I've been making some enquiries on the street." "Now, the belt, you've got the Louis Vuitton belt." "You've got a Gucci belt, is there any..." "Would you wear a Gucci belt?" "No, he wouldn't." "And I wouldn't wear Louis Vuitton." "Why not?" "I don't know, it just doesn't..." "For me, it...it's not smooth." "Louis Vuitton is a bit more feminine, it's a bit more slick." "Right." "I agree." "This is tackier, that's my look." "It's a more tacky, I like it." "How much was that?" "260." "Phew, for a belt?" "Yeah." "This, this was about eight quid, this one." "Still keeping my trousers up, isn't it?" "That's it!" "I'm going to find out how Louis Vuitton gets someone to fork out 260 quid for a belt." "If Louis Vuitton was a building, it would be Versailles." "Gorgeous." "Everyone who wants to be ostentatious and show off." "Some of the things are not very expensive there." "Trainers could be £300 or so." "The Louis Vuitton company started in Paris in 1854 making expensive luggage for royalty and the elite." "In the last 20 years, they've branched out into luxury clothing." "A coat will cost you up to £3,000, and a handbag up to 50,000." "Blimey!" "But I'm not looking for official history, I'm looking for secrets." "So I've tracked down Dana Thomas who's studied luxury brands and got a bit hooked in the process." "But Louis Vuitton is this incredibly amazing, unattainable, extremely expensive thing, isn't it?" "It's seen as that through its marketing, but it's actually very accessible." "In 1977, Louis Vuitton only had two stores." "And now it's an enormous business." "They now have over 400 shops all over the world." "It's a delicate balance of selling masses to the masses whilst still remaining exclusive to the rich." "You have a pyramid." "At the top, you have the very beautifully-made, exclusive, limited-amount product." "They will make anything you want." "From there you have the middle range that you can walk into the store and you can buy it." "It's still very well made, beautiful fabrics." "And then you have the bottom range where the money comes in." "Where they just sell masses of stuff." "You're looking at perfumes, wallets, belts, scarves, umbrellas, key chains, sunglasses." "That's how they manage to keep people like the Sultan of Brunei," "Hollywood stars, royalty as customers, as well as selling to the Chinese secretary who wants to put the bag on her desk to show that she can afford a Louis Vuitton bag." "So the top of the pyramid is where you build the image, where you build the...the kudos, and then the rest of the pyramid is where you exploit it and turn it into cash?" "Exactly." "Exactly." "That's brilliant!" "So, even if we can't afford the top or the middle of the pyramid, we can still thread some of its reflected glory through our trouser loops." "As far as I can see, this is how most of the luxury brands work." "All that super-expensive high-profile stuff that they do at the top end is just losing them money, but they're raking it in on the more affordable stuff at the bottom of this so-called pyramid." "But where are they getting all this stuff from, who's making it?" "I've been lucky enough to locate the place where Chanel make their £200 sunglasses." "Not the old world Parisian workshop I'd imagined." "It's a huge factory belonging to a company called Luxottica." "This is, this is Massimo and, er, you are the Chief Operating Officer of, of this..." "Luxottica Group." "So welcome in the temple of the glasses, er, factory." "Yeah." "Luxottica is something of a superbrand in its own right." "They own Sunglass Hut, Oakley, Persol, Ray-Ban and others." "And the whole operation, how many frames a year do you do?" "Er, 55 millions per year." "And it turns out it isn't just Chanel that have their sunglasses made here." "In fact, I've hit the luxury brand bottom of the pyramid jackpot!" "Who knew that all these different brands with their UNIQUE identities are all made in the same factory?" "In this area, you've got the same materials and the same machines and you can make any brand of sunglasses." "Tiffany." "Polo." "Chanel, Dolce  Gabbana, and Versace." "Here, we want every line to be able to produce any models, yes." "For example, this is, this is doing Polo today, but next week it might do Ray-Ban or...?" "Hmm, next shift." "Next shift it could be?" "Might be." "Next, er, half-an-hour." "Next half-an-hour?" "Next half-an-hour." "It could be any of the other brands?" "Any." "And not only do Luxottica make the sunglasses for the brands, but they also help design them." "Behind this wall..." "Yeah." "..there is a style office, product office, design, so..." "Lovely, lovely." "Er, we're not allowed to enter, er, but this is where all the fashion brands comes and together with our designer, they elaborate the sketches, they think, they readjust." "So, shall we just go in and, and have a look round, and see what..." "Just to get a feel for what..." "I love the way you've described it, but, to visualise it, should we go inside and have a look?" "I'll leave this to, to Evan." "That's very strictly confidential, so..." "Look, we're all friends now, we're all friends, why don't we just..." "Just for fun, just to have a look round." "I promise not to memorise anything that I see in there..." "Oh, it's fine without the camera, so we can just walk in." "Nothing happens without the camera." "Now, us buying into this pyramid with mass-produced goods is great for brands, but I hear it's a balancing act, cos they mustn't make it too obvious that just anyone can afford them." "Burberry's, Burberry's like, you know, fine wine." "You know, it's, it's refinement, you know, in a British way." "A statement of wealth." "Very traditional." "Elite." "Women that love clothes." "But also..." "A chav." "Chavvy, I guess." "So chavvy, I'm sorry." "Slightly chav." "Bit chavvy." "Chavvy." "Chavs." "That's where the chav name come from, Burberry, innit?" "So, Burberry means status and good taste for one set of people, and completely the opposite for another." "How did this happen?" "Burberry started life as a gentleman's outfitter." "They invented the trench coat during World War I." "It became a must-have for the posh wardrobe, bringing Burberry huge international success." "But in the 1980s their trademark check, once reserved for the lining for the coats, began popping up all over their collections." "Now you can buy a piece of old world class cheaply, the check became really popular." "Especially with football hooligans." "When these pictures started to come out, they changed the way people saw Burberry." "Certain bars and pubs would probably not, would not want to see that kind of check." "Because it's sort of had a low-rent kind of feel about it which was not obviously what Burberry wanted to send out as a message, that any old sort of person could wear this label." "Burberry had lost control of its own image and it was starting to affect sales further up the pyramid." "The trench coat lost its sense of being a luxury product to own." "Now, Burberry is a global company, and chavs are British, so this only affected British sales." "But these days, losing the confidence of style makers in one country, can spread and infect worldwide opinion." "To stop the rot, Burberry brought in a new head designer," "Christopher Bailey, who put the check back inside the clothes, and wooed back the fashion press with high-end catwalk shows." "Once the check thing died down, and the brand and the catwalk collection became really popular with the fashion press, they developed their relationship with their customers through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, those very modern ways of kind of communicating with your customer." "So, it seems Burberry have made themselves cool again, and no-one is remotely embarrassed to be seen in it." "Behind me they're just setting up for the Burberry Show, which is the biggest show of London Fashion Week." "Burberry is the epitome of understated English style, and this is the ticket that everyone wants to get hold of." "This £3 million extravaganza is all about keeping everybody's eyes firmly fixed on the top of the pyramid." "I've seen Sarah Jessica Parker." "Even I know who she is." "I've just got a brilliant picture of the back of her head on my phone." "I'm seeing first-hand how a big brand gets its message out." "Burberry's also very kind to invite me and, um, they have been very generous in the past." "Never been to one before, but I like Burberry, so, should be fun." "I can't believe I'm here, I'm so excited." "It operates in media on lots of different levels, so, yes, those clothes will be shot in Vogue, but, yes, that picture of Sarah Jessica Parker will be in the Daily Mirror." "I can see now why the superbrands want to control their image so carefully, and what massive lengths they go to to get the right image in the press." "But who's running the show, them or the magazines?" "Well, Glamour is the biggest-selling women's magazine in the UK and in Europe, I believe, as well." "We have about 550,000 readers, people who buy the magazine every month." "It's like THE most glamorous, but also most accessible girlfriend you have." "Today, we're shooting the first story of the season which is, what we call "hit list", which is 12 key looks from the season." "The person in our head when putting the pages together is somebody around 28 years old, probably in a relationship, probably doesn't have children, so therefore, she's at that prime in her life when most of the money she earns" "is money she can spend however she wants to spend it." "And the brands can try and make her spend a bit on them through advertising, But it's much more effective to be written about." "Magazine editorial is great for those brands." "The fact that we're saying to them "We love this"" "is a real sort of badge of honour." "This is our little DG look which is, em, really pretty." "Christian Dior." "We've got a Chanel look here." "Prada..." "Gucci." "Is that machine washable?" "I shouldn't imagine, no!" "So, basically, these are some of the biggest fashion brands in the world if not THE biggest?" "And is it..." "Why are you choosing them?" "We get so excited when we go into the Prada show or the DG show, so that's who, you know, we want to have in a story." "So, nothing to do with that big fat advertising budget then?" "Fashion magazines need advertising in order to exist." "But on the same level fashion brands need the magazines to show the consumer what's available." "You know, it's a kind of two-way relationship." "So, this magazine is your glamorous girlfriend advising you to spend disposable income on the top superbrands." "# I like the way you move!" "#" "Glamour definitely gets people in the shops." "I think it's fair to say that some of these big-ticket designer items actually create a sense of frenzy and excitement that goes beyond sort of being in any way rational about things, which I just can't understand." "To try and find out more about these feelings I'm on my way to Manchester to a company where, if you can't afford to buy that latest "it bag", they'll rent it to you." "How much is a bag to hire?" "Something like, say, a Bottega, it's about, I would say..." "A Bottega?" "Yeah, Bottega Benetta, yeah, and it's about £100 to hire this one." "To hire it?" "Yeah." "So £100 to hire it for a month?" "How much would it cost to buy it?" "Well, to buy it, it's about £1,500." "£1,500?" "Yes, yeah." "It looks like it's about 30 quid." "I know." "It looks, it looks, to me..." "That looks like very cheap vinyl." "Hmm, well, it's not, it's a brand, it's a very famous Italian luxury house." "But aren't all these manufacturers, basically, they're just trying to, every six months, launch another bag that they want everybody to go crazy for?" "It's not even six months any more, more like six weeks, a new bag coming out." "So, what are the hottest ones, that people are desperate to get hold of now?" "At the moment, it's the Mulberry Alexa, I would say." "How long would you have to wait for something like that, then?" "It was only put on the site the other day because Aditi only bought it the other day and there's already six members waiting for that bag." "Can you describe the feeling?" "Getting your hands on the must-have bag for the first time - how does that feel?" "It feels really special, you know?" "It's like, there's a really nice car you've seen out on the road and if you were to own it and drive it out of the garage, that's exactly the same feeling, I think we ladies get, if we go out and buy a really nice handbag." "A car?" "Now I've got a much better idea of what we're talking about." "But where do those kind of feelings come from?" "I mean, is it really just all hype and celebrity endorsement, or is there something deeper going on inside of us?" "Time for an experiment." "Hannah, can you come with me please?" "The person who will administer my experiment is Professor Calvert, an eminent neuroscientist who looks inside people's brains to see why they do things." "A large part of our behaviour is actually driven by these brain processes which operate below the level of our awareness." "So we do things for reasons that we don't even understand ourselves?" "That's exactly right." "Our brains evolve to make us better at surviving and breeding and passing on our genes." "It did that by making things like eating and sex feel good." "That's done in the limbic system where we feel things like fear, anger, pleasure, pain, desire." "It all happens here." "Later on we develop the intellect." "That's the bit where you might think YOU'RE making decisions." "Make no mistake that, by and large, this rational bit of the brain still services this old emotional, mammalian brain." "So the old emotional bit is actually driving the new rational bit." "It's all about those primeval urges." "You could describe it as the puppet and the puppet master." "I'm going to try and find out what's going on inside a lady's brain when she gets all hot and sweaty over handbags." "Allow me to introduce my guinea pig." "I'm Hannah Porter, I'm a student, I study specialist make-up." "Hannah loves fashion." "She reads all the magazines and loves designer clothes, but at the moment, shops in the High Street." "Well, she is a student." "I'm excited." "Are you?" "Yeah, I'd like to see the inside of my head." "Hannah is being inserted into an MRI scanner, a machine which can look inside her brain so we can see what's going on when we show her pictures of handbags." "OK, Hannah, we're going to start now." "To begin with, some cheap ones." "Shocking." "That's all right, isn't it?" "Yes, darling, happy birthday!" "Then we show Hannah some expensive handbags." "See this ventral striatal area?" "That's one of her pleasure centres of her brain involved in reward and things like craving and addiction, so it's part of the reward network." "And that lights up when she sees the expensive bags, but not when she sees the cheap ones." "To light up that part of the brain must be any brand's dream, because what we're looking at are Hannah's feelings which she can't control even if she wants to." "Craving and addiction." "So they're the buzz that an addict gets from something that they're addicted to?" "She's experiencing something akin to that when she's looking at these luxury brands?" "Yeah." "Good grief." "She's not getting that on the cheap-and-cheerful brands." "Clearly not, no." "But I still don't really get why something that's expensive should trigger such a deep emotion." "So, I'm back at Louis Vuitton with someone who might be able to explain." "This is ostentation and extravagance taken to the ultimate limit." "It reminds me a lot of what peacocks do, because what a peacock does with its feathers is to say, "Look at my extravagant display." ""Look at how rich I am in resources that I can just squander them" ""and waste them to attract a mate."" "Or saying that I have got so much money that it doesn't mean anything to spend £10,000 on a handbag." "Absolutely." "By having so much money, I become more desirable as a mate because I have access to so many resources, so my genes must be good because to accumulate those resources I must be intelligent, creative and all those things that people look for in mates." "So, basically, they're doing it to get a shag?" "Yeah." "It's a funny thing, but when you realise that those super luxury brands are basically tapping into our instinct to procreate, it makes you look at designer clothes in a whole different light." "The thing is, when you're looking at mainstream brands, they can't rely on that, can they?" "So, how are THEY doing it?" "Look around, everyone's wearing jeans." "There's nothing aspirational at all about a pair of jeans." "And yet jeans are the most common garment in the world." "So, how do the jeans superbrands help shift over £30 billion worth of denim every year?" "What are they tapping into?" "I've found a man to tell me about jeans brands who's been studying them for years, although he doesn't actually wear them." "Jeans are such an amazing garment." "I mean, pretty much everybody's got them all over the world." "And they're not all that different, design wise, you know." "We've got all these manufacturers working with the same product, but coming from all kinds of different angles in terms of what their message is." "I'd better start at the beginning." "What sort of person would wear Levi's?" "Um..." "I think everyone wears Levi's." "Yeah, everyone." "I think Levi's is absolutely a reflection of youth rebellion." "Well, you can't see a construction person without a pair of Levi's on." "What sort of things pop into your mind when you think about Levi's?" "Usually, um, cowboys." "Just spread through every corner of the culture." "Levi's have been the world's biggest-selling jeans brand for over 100 years, but how did they get there?" "Levi Strauss was running a shop in San Francisco during the gold rush of the late 1800s, when he had the idea of using some fabric he'd imported to make tents to make hard-wearing trousers for the miners." "He brought it in from Nimes in France." "De Nimes - denim, get it?" "He put rivets in the pockets to stop them tearing and jeans were born." "That was pretty much it for 70 years until, just after the Second World War, teenagers were invented." "The Western world was coming out of this massive slump, and all of a sudden, there was this exciting new era of people that weren't wearing suits." "They were wearing work wear, dating girls and riding motorbikes." "All of a sudden denim was actually a really cool look." "They were incorporating into THEIR message the workwear of the common, honest, salt-of-the-earth people." "It was really ruffling feathers." "It's, you know, similar to me going round my granny's house in paint-spattered overalls with paint on my face, all that kind of thing, that'd be like, "I don't care, I'm here"." "Now, as well as meaning work, jeans and Levi's with them meant rebellion." "Once rock'n'roll came along in the '60s jeans meant peace, skinheads and loads of things." "You can tell a lot about somebody just from looking at their jeans." "Throughout most of human history people use their dress to signal their success in life." "In the 20th and the 21st centuries what people started craving and needing was to be able to assert their authenticity in an ever more marketed and advertised and fake world." "What mattered was to say "I'm real"." "Nothing says "I'm real" as much as the total history of jeans and denim." "In the 1970s an Italian teenager saw clearly what people wanted from their jeans." "Over the next 30 years he turned his vision into a £1 billion superbrand." "Lean, Italian, high price point." "Young, 20-something or other, nice butt in jeans." "Funky." "Actually more creative than Levi's." "Diesel represents a new phase in what jeans and denim is all about." "Back in the '70s Renzo Rosso saw that people liked their lived-in, ripped, dirty jeans." "This knackered legwear had history." "So, he decided to make off-the-peg history and sell jeans pre-knackered." "Diesel understood that there was a message in your choice of trousers." "The emphasis here, the hard work, goes into not just designing a better or more expensive pair of jeans, but designing a really complex and attractive message which is going to appeal to a wide range of customers, and which" "they're going to be willing to pay that bit extra for." "Diesel's still owned by Renzo and it's based in his home town in Italy." "This should be a good place to find out about trouser messages." "Hello, I'm Alex." "This is the international headquarters of Diesel in Italy." "We're in one of the areas where they come up with the latest ideas for finishes and designs." "There's not a lot we can film because this is cutting-edge fashion and we're just waiting for Renzo, the creative genius behind Diesel to come and see us." "He's just having his hair done." "Here he is." "Hello, buongiorno." "Buongiorno." "Nice to see you." "Nice to meet you." "Is that a Diesel hat?" "Of course!" "Although Diesel sell other stuff now, they're still churning out their pre-knackered jeans." "If we look at these jeans here, these look like somebody's had them for about 15 years." "It looks like they may have cut themselves - that could be blood or something - it sort of, it tells a story." "This one could be somebody who's a painter or decorator, for example." "Yes." "Or in a car-spray booth, or something." "Do you look at inspiration for people in working environments, and that sort of thing?" "You started in 1978." "Yes." "What reaction did you get from shops and distributors?" "Did they think you were mad?" "Did they think you were a bit crazy to want to sell what appeared to be second-hand jeans?" "But Renzo's not crying any more and where he pioneered, others have followed." "Now virtually all jeans brands have lines of distressed or destroyed denim, having them made in Turkey, China, the Philippines, Mexico or India." "Look at this place, this is incredible." "We're in India, we're just heading towards a denim factory that distresses denim and makes it look second-hand." "Busy, isn't it?" "'I'm finding the whole idea of trouser messages quite strange, 'so I'm really curious what these people think about them.'" "How many jeans are you producing in this factory?" "Who are the main brands that we might have heard of that you make garments for?" "'But I'm not here to see jeans being made," "'I'm here to see jeans being destroyed.'" "My job is to destroy, and I can say "Screw the public", and make it look good." "Do you find it slightly strange that you take something that is immaculate and pristine and you totally destroy it?" "See, it's my hobby." "It's my erm..." "What do we we call?" "Interest." "We are doing some work which we like." "and we find ourself in doing that work." "If you take any garment like this, you put it in your showroom, no-one will buy it like this." "But they will pay extra for something that looks older." "Yes." "And more second-hand." "Younger people want jeans to look older, older people want jeans to look younger?" "Yes." "'What else can I do but hand my jeans over to this philosopher of denim?" "'First he gets the sandpaper out and starts a process called whiskering 'to make those white lines that normally come after years of creasing and washing." "'Then comes the grinding.'" "So, what they are doing here, they are grinding all the edges of the garment." "So after wear the garment for one or two years." "Putting your hand, taking your hand..." "Five minutes will give you the same." "'Then more sanding processes to produce holes.'" "'Next, it's over to the wet processing area...'" "No, not pink!" "I don't want pink trousers!" "'..for stonewashing and bleaching, 'before heading back to dry land for a final crinkle.'" "So what he's doing now is adjusting the crinkle by hand." "The crinkle are created themselves." "Every time you get into that position." "Yeah." "I haven't got the time to sit in that position for year after year to get a crinkle - that's why this process is so important." "It's finished." "'It seems to me that destroying denim is all about pretending - 'pretending that you've been through something that you haven't." "'It's an example of adding a message to your trousers 'and I'm really interested to find out 'how you get someone to fork out for that kind of thing.'" "This brand behind me seems to mean more about the message than any other brand I've come across so far." "Basically, their clothes are very straightforward and ordinary, but they charge four times as much as other high street shops." "There's absolutely no sign of a shop whatsoever." "'Yet people queue around the block to shop here." "And why is that man half-naked?" "'What's their message?" "'" "It'll be kind of the in-crowd that, you know, kind of gather together." "Preppy." "It looks better on a white person." "Yeah." "because the way they dress is different." "It sort of projects an image of vanity and superficiality to me." "I love Abercrombie  Fitch." "I've just been in there and got my stuff." "Abercrombie  Fitch began in 1892 as a posh New York sports outfitter." "Abercrombie  Fitch was where Ernest Hemingway kept his guns off season." "But, after being taken over in the 1980s, it was stamped with a completely new identity - the only thing they kept was the name and the date." "It is kind of like shopping in a nightclub." "You go into the store, the first thing you're confronted by is that it's quite dark." "The second thing is the fact that all the shop assistants are practically models." "Sometimes the male models are topless." "Sometimes they're dancing." "This kind of shopping experience is called retail theatre." "At Abercrombie it's all about a highly-sexualised look, from the advertising, to the shopping bags, to the staff." "For women, it's kind of slender, athletic." "If you're a boy, quite jockish, probably a bit blonde." "Remind you of somebody?" "Abercrombie  Fitch don't want to talk to me, but I'm going to get the look anyway and cruise down to see what I can learn." "# And all the girlies say I'm pretty fly for a white guy... #" "The man responsible for all this theatre is the 66 year-old boss Mike Jeffries, who sees to be having ever-increasing amounts of plastic surgery to retain the Abercrombie look." "I think every sort of megabrand does needs some kind of slightly nutterish person in charge of it." "You know, that certainly helps to kind of create a newsworthy brand." "Woo, all right!" "'I get the feeling that Abercrombie want to be seen as exclusive, 'and I've found some quotes from Jeffries to back this up.'" ""In every school there are cool and popular kids," ""and then there are the not-so-cool kids." ""Candidly, we go after the cool kids." ""We go after the attractive, all-American kid" ""with a great attitude and lots of friends."" "'And every exclusive club knows that the one thing more important than who you let in 'is who you don't let in.'" ""A lot of people don't belong in our clothes and they can't belong." ""Are we exclusionary?" "Absolutely."" "For the final touch, the scent that they spritz in all the shops." "Fierce." "Starting with the bouncers on the door, the message here is exclusivity, although in reality, everyone seems to be getting in no matter how friendless and ugly they may be." "They even let me in, although not with a camera." "'So do people feel ripped off, having to pay over the odds for the clothes?" "'" "It's 80 quid." "It's a lot of money for what it is, isn't it?" "If didn't have a logo and you went to another shop, they're just as good quality." "But why don't you do that?" "It's not the same." "No, it's never the same." "It's different." "It is different, but it's not." "But why Abercrombie  Fitch?" "It's quite standard stuff, innit?" "Tracksuit tops and chinos and jeans..." "I don't know." "It's really popular." "It's like you've got to fit in." "If you haven't got Abercrombie Fitchwouldyoubeleft out?" "A little bit, yeah." "'Abercrombie  Fitch might be tight-lipped, 'but I have managed to persuade another ideas brand 'to let me see the message-making process in action.'" "Superdry are one of the world's fastest-growing clothing brands." "Their clothes aren't that different to Abercrombie  Fitch except for the huge variety of distinctive logos and graphics." "It seems to be a strange sort of mixture of the American and the Japanese." "So it's possibly a Japanese company trying to sort of buy into post-war America, when everything was cool." "What do you know about Superdry?" "Do you know what country of origin it is?" "I would say probably Japanese or Japan." "I know it's from Japan." "Is it Japanese?" "'I'm off to Superdry's global HQ.'" "# I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese" "# I really think so" "# I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese... #" "A bit weird - all the signs are in English." "'Sadly, no trip to Japan." "'It turns out that Superdry is English 'and they come from an industrial estate just outside Cheltenham.'" "This brand is less than six years old, but in that time, they've grown from zero to £400 million turnover a year." "It all happened on a plane trip to Tokyo." "We went to Japan to get some inspiration, we went there looking for clothes and ideas but we came back with nothing, but we came back with suitcases full of packaging - street signs and pop bottles and noodle packets and anything, literally anything." "It's all super this, super that, all high impact." "I had a little office across the road with the shelves full of packaging in front of me." "Then we started with the T shirts, five t-shirts and a couple of polos." "'So, this weird Superdry world is completely made up.'" "So this is where you come up with all the graphics, all the logos?" "For me it's all about vintage Americana." "I'm obsessed with that '50s, '60s..." "I call it sort of garageland culture - petrol stations, forecourt livery, hotrod magazines, all that kind of thing." "This was a very early one I did." "When that went in store it became an instant number-one bestseller." "And James and I were like, "Yes!" "Let's do more of that."" "Everything we do is hand-rendered." "I work in a very old-school way." "A bit of Japanese text in here." "What does that say?" "Yeah, that says "crankshafts" in Japanese." "Wow!" "That's amazing, isn't it?" "If you look at the great youth cultures of the world, and basically there's Britain, there's America and there's Japan." "And what we've done, and what James has done is brilliantly sort of meld the sort of cool aspects of it all and so Superdry was created." "So what have I learned so far?" "You could say that luxury brands are about buying your way up the social ladder, and jeans or American vintage clothing are about keeping it real by buying a piece of a '50s American fantasy world where everyone's a mechanic." "Well, if we all more or less understand this language of brands, when does it start?" "I'm talking to a group of 10 and 11 year-olds to get some more info." "I'm just going to hold up some pictures to you and I want you to tell me if you recognise it and what it is." "OK." "OK, are you ready?" "Yeah." "Erm..." "Two Cs." "Burberry?" "Who?" "Have you heard of Burberry?" "A burglary?" "Burglary?" "!" "'OK, maybe it's not fair to do luxury brands.'" "Tell me what sort of person you think would wear Levi's." "What is Levi's?" "OK, Diesel." "Petrol." "'But of course, there's a huge section of the clothing market I haven't even touched yet, 'and some of the world's biggest superbrands.'" "OK, are you ready?" "ALL:" "Adidas." "Nike." "Obviously!" "'These brands are in our heads in a way the others can only dream of.'" "Jackets, trousers, tracksuits." "So, what's their secret?" "Apparently, Adidas sales are about double what Levi's sales are, for example, and Nike sales are about three times as much." "Part of it has got to be the amount of money they spend on marketing." "And I've seen how important advertising is to fashion brands, but these brands take it to a whole new level." "Adidas spend £900 million a year and Nike £1.6 billion." "I'm going to see some people who make it their business to study Nike's advertising." "Adbusters try to take the global brands on at their own game and spoof their advertisements with "subvertisements."" "Hello, are you Lauren?" "No, I'm Tyler." "'They've used the Nike logo 'as part of their corporate stars and stripes." "'They object to what they see as the world takeover by megabrands, 'although I can't help noticing that not everyone is quite on-message.'" "Logo on his..." "Oh!" "Why are you wearing a brand, Kevin?" "What's all that about?" "Are you being ironic?" "Very, very ironic." "Kevin's a volunteer, so he's in training." "He's not been through the programme?" "No, no." "Exactly." "He's not had his mind changed." "I wanted to get their take on these megabudget ad campaigns." "Well, I think that the power of brands, especially megabrands, comes from their ability to build a kind of a nuclear glow around their brand." "And they spend days, weeks..." "I used to be in the advertising industry so I know." "Really?" "They spend sometimes months and they pay some marketing whiz-kids hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars to decide what emotion can we take and then put around our brand?" "Is it going to be empowerment?" "Is it going to be homeliness?" "Is it going to be love?" "Is it going to be sexiness?" "The Nike brand is a good example of that, they have this nuclear glow that says "empowerment"." "You wear Nikes and you're going to be stronger, you're going to be cooler, you're going to be better in some way." "And that is the secret of their power, the fact that they have managed to tap into an emotion that is central to our lives and they've been able to place their brand right there, where it hurts, if you like." "Yeah!" "'And it goes way beyond billboards and glossy TV ads." "'At the school, I saw the power of another method 'of placing your brand where it hurts.'" "If some City fans saw Tevez wearing Nike boots, they'd beg their mums for Nike boots and things." "Then they'd go to school and go, "I'm wearing the same boots as Tevez."" "Right, I see." "'So, getting your boots on the feet of the right people 'is especially important for this age group.'" "What sort of person do you think would wear Adidas?" "Lionel Messi, because he wears Adidas." "The Adi... the adiZero boots." "'I think it's time to go play with the big boys.'" "From fashion forward all the way through the demographic, I'd say." "Super cool." "Really sporty." "It's funky, young, sexy." "Again, chavvy I can do." "I'm on my way to the headquarters of Adidas," "Number One Adi-Dassler Strasse." "The roots of Adidas lie in the Dassler brothers' shoe factory, founded in 1928 by brothers Adi Dassler, a brilliant sports-shoe maker, and Rudi Dassler, a clever businessman." "The Dassler brothers survived the Second World War by making boots for the German Army." "But in 1946 they fell out and set up rival shoe businesses " "Puma from Rudi Dassler, and Adidas from Adi Dassler." "They never spoke again." "Ah, look, Factory Outlet Adidas, there on the horizon." "And look, just over there, there's a massive Puma building." "Apparently, for years even the workers didn't speak to each other." "I'm not exactly a sportsman, but I reckon I could be good for Adidas." "You see, what I could do if I was endorsing them," "I could come down here, get some pictures taken, go round the track, you know." "Maybe have a party with some other celebrities or something and that'd be great business, great PR for Adidas." "'These are the different brands that they also have in the Adidas Group.'" "Adidas, Adidas, Adidas and Adidas." "Reebok, CCM, TaylorMade, Adidas," "Ashworth and Rockport." "Isn't that a type of cheese?" "'I'm being taken to the brand centre 'where Adidas train their employees.'" "There's a big thing up there that we can't film." "It's totally secret and commercially sensitive." "But it's amazing, really big." "It goes on and on." "Ah, clever." "Their in-house historian has agreed to take me to a room even many of the employees don't know exists." "Why don't you try to open the door?" "I feel a bit like Indiana Jones." "Is this the tomb of Adidas Land?" "Yeah, try it out." "Find out." "Oh, my goodness." "Ah!" "'This room contains a shoe with more history 'than any other shoe I've ever met.'" "I would love to get the gloves on if we show that." "1936 was the year of Adolf Hitler's Berlin Olympic Games, where Hitler's plans to demonstrate Aryan racial supremacy were upset by a black American athlete, Jesse Owens." "This is one of the shoes that were worn by Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics." "Adi Dassler had spotted the publicity value of Owens before the Olympics." "And so he talked to Jesse and we know the rest of the history." "ARCHIVE COMMENTARY 'Lutz Long's last jump." "'Also 7.87 metres!" "'A new European record." "'Now the amazing Owens again." "'8.06 metres!" "'A new world record...'" "When Jesse Owens won four gold medals wearing Adi Dassler's shoes." "The company, not yet called Adidas, hit pay dirt." "And it was a major boost for the business." "They produced, after that, a lot of shoes for different sports." "That is an actual pair that Jesse Owens wore to win gold at the 1936 Olympics?" "Gosh!" "Have you got the left?" "And over the years," "Adidas have pushed this idea of endorsements way beyond sport." "Now they have a seeding programme, various sort of people in and around various cultures, music artists, street artists." "They try to target and identify those key players, get them wearing it and then... get it seen out and about." "'Ooh!" "I've got a meeting with the man responsible 'for giving free Adidas gear to trendy people." "'I'm sure he'll recognise a trendsetter when he sees one.'" "I look upon Adidas as an iconic, credible brand, so we wanted to associate ourselves with iconic, credible people." "Yes." "So how do you keep it fresh, then?" "How do you make sure that you're endorsing the people that younger people than you will be interested in?" "A good example would be, probably about 2003, a friend of mine adopted a young lad." "I went round there and him and his mates were talking about MCs and DJs and I had absolutely no clue about any of these people they were talking about." "# Don't cha know?" "# Don't cha, don't cha know... #" "You know, what they were listening to now has kind of turned, you know, has been labelled as grime." "# Who wants to be a millionare?" "Me" "# Who wants to be a millionaire?" "Me... #" "And so I made it my business to find out about what it was that they were listening to and who the people were within that scene." "And when we started to provide product to those kids, a lot of those kids couldn't believe that a corporation was even aware of who they were." "# Bashy!" "Big beard" "# Whoa-whoa!" "Respect.. #" "A lot of these kids that we're talking about are now, you know, having number one records." "# Number one" "# I don't understand how you're number one... #" "Were they actually wearing Adidas before you started?" "Well, not really." "# No blue-suede shoes Just my Adidas trainers" "# But I'm still rock'n'roll... #" "I mean, are you looking for anybody, you know, maybe in the TV business?" "For example BBC3, I don't know if you've watched BBC3?" "Very cool demographic." "Wouldn't it be a good idea to maybe get involved with somebody who the people obviously think is cool... like me, for example?" "Do you want to talk numbers?" "Or maybe just the trainers?" "I don't want to put you into a corner, Gary, but to be honest, there's other people..." "Is this really happening?" "There's other people out here." "You know, I mean..." "You know, I am hot." "What do you think?" "Erm..." "God bless you." "Thanks." "Unbelievable!" "How are they ever going to regain their number one status when they pass up an opportunity like that?" "But interestingly, despite all this multimillion-dollar power to get inside our minds, even the biggest brand has to be careful, because things can go wrong - very quickly." "I find Nike as a superbrand particularly interesting because they mean everything to everyone, but that everything isn't the same message." "Everyone from like rap stars to sports people - everyone wears Nike." "I have Nike sneakers." "Mass, mass, mass, mass, mass market." "They transcend being on the high street, to verging on luxury, to verging on super-technical." "You even see tramps wearing Nike." "Yeah." "Nike started in 1964 as Blue Ribbon Sports, founded by a college athlete, Phil Knight, and his coach Bill Bowerman." "They were in at the start of the new jogging boom and helped develop it." "At first, importing and then designing and manufacturing their own jogging shoes." "And they had an advantage over the others." "Right from the start, their business model was to use cheap labour to make shoes in developing countries and save on costs." "But pictures of bad working practises and illegal conditions started to leak out in the 1990s." "ARCHIVE REPORT 'We told them how workers 'had been forced to sew clothes seven days a week." "'We told them about the compulsory overtime, 'the harassment, and of course, about the child labour.'" "CHANTING" "There was a backlash against Nike products." "Brands, like religions, have values." "So if we see ourselves as being the kind of person that believes what Levi's believes, or believe in the values of Louis Vuitton, or believes in the values of Nike, then those are the brands we will wear" "to display our traits to the world." "If they go against those values, then you will lose your association with them." "Which explains the lengths Nike have gone to to be seen to be dealing with these issues." "I've discovered another reason" "Nike would want to clean up their image in the developing world." "In these countries, where the scandals happened," "Nike stores are now popping up like mushrooms." "I want to see for myself why Nike is so hot to trot there." "This is the morning rush hour in Chennai, which is in the south-east of India." "and is the third fastest-growing city on earth." "Hundreds of motorbikes." "Quite a few of these blokes riding the motorbikes don't have shoes on." "'What a great opportunity to sell trainers!" "'" "And over there is a big Nike store." "Shit, shit, what are we doing, what are...?" "Argh!" "I'm wondering if any of the labour scandals have affected how people think of Nike here." "Did that have any negative impact on the brand in this country?" "No, I don't think so." "'So they have to be especially careful of their image here." "'But it's a different one to the one I recognise.'" "Right." "So she has a driver, she's sitting in the back?" "Yes." "She's at the sort of income level that would be the person who would shop at Nike?" "Yes." "If you've got to walk it, you can't afford it - is that the idea?" "Right." "So, Nike's an exclusive brand over here and only a tiny percentage of the population can afford it." "But as there are now over a billion people in India, that tiny fraction is a cool 50 million punters, and growing fast every day." "Kerching!" "And what about the 950 million who currently can't afford it?" "Here on this minibus, there's Nike logos all across the windows." "A hand-crafted Nike swoosh." "'You have to really like a brand to go to all this trouble to own its logo.'" "Each individual one is subtly different from the one next to it." "'And it's not just Nike.'" "Do you prefer branded things?" "'Buying a fake means you don't even get an assurance of quality, 'the most basic thing you expect from a brand." "'Fakes really are all about the message.'" "If you had enough money, would you go to the Puma shop..." "So, finally, in India's new shopping malls, catering for those people lucky enough to be able to afford originals..." "I've found what I was looking for...." "I've found the real secret of the fashion superbrands." "'Or did I find it here at the fakes market...' Levi's." "'..where you can buy different levels of fakes to fit your budget?" "'" "That's quite convincing, isn't it?" "'Actually I found it in both.' Burberry, Burberry." "'Because the secret of the fashion superbrand...'" "It's a Louis Vuitton hat that chap's got on." "'..is that they offer something so universal...'" "Levi's, Levi's, Nike..." "Nike!" "'.." "That everyone, at all layers of society, wants it...'" "Adidas. '..whether they can afford it or not.'" "Abibas." "'And that's why Nike expect the emerging markets 'to push their profits up by over £2 billion a year, 'why Adidas will be opening nearly two stores every day 'for the next five years in China." "'Why Burberry's Asian sales 'climbed 68% last year." "'So, where does the secret power of the fashion superbrand come from?" "'It comes from us.'" "'Next time, I'll be sniffing around the secretive world of the food superbrands.'" "You're not going to get this recipe, however hard you try." "'I'll knock on the doors of the global grub-mongers...' Beans!" "'..to see how they got to be such a big part of our lives.'" "It's everywhere, but you're sick of it." "'I want to know where they came from...'" "The past no longer exists." "Everything is Red Bull branded." "It is the definitive brand!" "'..and what they've got in store for us.'" "We're going to double this business in 10 years." "Double it?" "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"