This will come as a shock to...
This will come as a shock to you Mike but the people who actually worked bloody hard to make these pieces happen in the first place deserve respect, alive or dead and the confidence they placed in their chosen manufacturers should be respected too. They and all the people who helped them make it happen often refine and represent the peak of technological and artistic development in our culture and you and your suppliers are grubby little profiteers, what do you put back into the industry? Do you maintain archives? Do you hold conferences, open days or exhibitions? Do you sponsor competitions?
You come from this class of people who is naive and greedy enough to think that everyone can have whatever they want at the click of a mouse. I can't even afford your knockoffs, theres no way I can afford Knoll or Herman Miller or Vitra but I have the ability to see beyond my own desires, do you?
I will not give you any more oxygen, you've had enough.
Heh heh
I KNEW that Patrick and Alix would remove all evidence of your store's name; they don't allow anyone to promote themselves here at all.
That said, we have occasionally mentioned a good source for buying something, and they have allowed that to be listed.
Getting back to the knockoff issue, the knockoff makers are chasing the same iconic pieces designed Arne Jacobsen, Mies van der Rohre, Charles & Ray Eames, etc. Currently, all of the Alphaville knockoffs are designs currently available from legit liscened companies. Thus, it's an 'original, quality" issue.
What's currently available is just a fraction of the quality mid-century designs produced during the late 1940's through the 1960's.
If Alphaville or that italian knockoff company (don't know their name) did some digging and knockoffed pieces that are not currently available, they would create an exclusive market.
Quality
Mike, I work in the design industry and have been subjected to hundreds of clients showing me the cheap knock-offs that they want to buy to save some money instead of buying authentic pieces. I've been to White Furniture, and numerous other knock-off companies and I have NEVER seen a high-quality knock-off. Because that's not the point of knock-offs. The swan chairs at White Furniture look like they were sewn with baling twine. The Barcelona chair (by Alphaville) at the knock-off shop in town has seams that look like the Andes, and the same shop has a Wassili (sic) chair made of cheap bonded leather that is prone to tearing (see the link below).
http://national.citysearch.com/review/4745652?reviewId=17503701
I think Mike has some good...
I think Mike has some good points and I think people on this message board are way too harsh toward anything that doesn't jive with their opinions. The guy left himself open to criticism with this topic and I actually applaud him for what he said.
I've been thinking about buying the Noguchi Table and have found literally no difference between the original and the reproduction table I'm looking at other than the stupid little inscribed Isamu Noguchi signature on the side of the table that some machine made. And the Barcelona Chair that Knoll offers right now is nothing like the original, yet they masquerade it as being an original...come on! There is no chance in h*ll that you can honestly say that thing is an original. Has anyone been to see the real ones? They're completely different chairs.
I think people on this web site are way too snobby to actually see the other side of this argument...
Deception (cont)
As stated above the goal of knock-offs isn't about quality. If quality were an issue for knock-off dealers they would forge relationships with the authentic manufacturers. The goal of knock-offs is money: to make things as cheaply as possible in order to have a 300% mark-up and still be cheaper than the authentic versions. And most knock-off companies, yourself included, will use deceptive tactics in order to sell things.
Deceptive tactics like trying to rationalize that no company makes 'originals' when this is clearly not true; or that the only differences between your "Nelson" Sofa and the one made by Herman Miller is money - clearly the country/methods/employees are vastly different, unless you'd like to claim that working/living conditions in China match those in Michigan?
But probably the most insulting and nauseating bait & switch tactic employed is your photographs. If you're so confident in your products why do you need to steal photographs of authentic pieces and pass them off as your own? Both of your websites show the Nelson bench made in maple, like the authentic, but the copy says your bench is made from ash. And your photographs of the Eames Aluminum chairs are lifted straight from Herman Miller's website.
History & Context
Two other causalties in the knock-off money grab. Take the zealous gentleman posting above (by the way, no-one here buys the tactic of signing in under a new name and pretending to be someone else)
If this gentleman had any sense of history and context he might know that the two original Barcelona chairs were handmade by Joseph Muller for the Barcelona Pavillion in 1929. He might also know that after Mies emigrated to the US in 1937 he was introduced to Hans Knoll by Phillip Johnson & Florence Knoll (a student of Mies), and together with Knoll Mies HIMSELF made changes to the design and production methods in 1947. The chair began mass production in 1948 and hasn't ceased since then. So, in a way the gentleman is correct, these are not like the originals. They are, however, the way that Mies intended them to be.
Same goes for LeCorbusier, who consilidated his multiple manufacturers under Cassina in the 60s. He did so in order to preserve the integrity of his works, and to avoid stupid shit like this (pic2 below) from happening.
And by the way - if you think nothing is different between the Noguchi table made by Herman Miller and the Tribeca table you should familiarize yourself with the places they are made. Picture 1 is the Herman Miller building. Picture 3 is a "LeCorbusier" piece being made in China.
Lucifer - puhhhhlease. You...
Lucifer - puhhhhlease. You probably just googled some picture of a chinese factory and passed it off as being standard for all products coming out of china. I find that very naive and honestly kind of racist. You probably think the Chinese can't make a high quality product. Well, open your eyes. Where do you think 90% of the world's products come from? That flat screen TV you have was made in China. The kitchen appliances you have are made in China.
Give your holier than thou crap a rest...
You broched a subject that...
You broched a subject that truly needs attention.
Herman Miller and Knoll are industy leaders in the global efforts towards a healthier, greener world. They deserve to be supported for this. They have also spent considerable resources researching and developing products to meet consumer needs. This takes lots of time and money to successfully accomplish.
The kind of thing most Knock-offs companies don't do. Actually, quite the opposite.
I agree
That the demonized China argument is played out (in many cases). Vitra has a factory in China. Someone posted the example of designer handbags. The bootlegs are often coming from the same factory with the same workers as the designer brand. Obviously, designer brand does not equate to quality and vice versa. Crap can come from anywhere... and so can quality.
To me, knocking-off furniture is more about lack of thought in many regards.
Barry, you keep mentioning reproducing long-lost designs. There is too much thought required and very little profit to be had in that. A factory can make whatever it chooses or is instructed to. The Acme Widget company that employs/owns the factory does so for profit... Whether it be widgets, wingdings, or "designer" furniture.
Really
What well of angst do words like these come from ?
This will come as a shock to you Mike but the people who actually worked bloody hard to make these pieces happen in the first place deserve respect, alive or dead and the confidence they placed in their chosen manufacturers should be respected too. They and all the people who helped them make it happen often refine and represent the peak of technological and artistic development in our culture and you and your suppliers are grubby little profiteers, what do you put back into the industry? Do you maintain archives? Do you hold conferences, open days or exhibitions? Do you sponsor competitions?
You come from this class of people who is naive and greedy enough to think that everyone can have whatever they want at the click of a mouse. I can't even afford your knockoffs, theres no way I can afford Knoll or Herman Miller or Vitra but I have the ability to see beyond my own desires, do you?
I will not give you any more oxygen, you've had enough.
posted by Heath
Mike wrote:
I know people hate to hear this but the last thing on most of the original designers' minds was creating a luxury brand, which is what has happened with these large corporations licensing their products. I know what it costs to make a lot of these products and I know what these corporations are marking up their products by.
I hope in the future more people on this forum will be open to the possibility that (a) companies like ours can actually sell high quality reproduction pieces at reasonable prices and (b) just because a large corporation has licensed a product does not mean that the company's reproduction is any more "original" than another company. I know those are not possibilities that all people agree with, but I'm just asking to keep an open mind.
I wonder how people will feel when one day those licenses expire..
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Like it or not, those are valid points. What is being threatened in you, that you have to respond as above ?
The truth is, everybody wants something at a price. The laws of supply and demand obtain, whether we like it or not. I'm withholding judgement on the present manufacturer, because I haven't seen the products at first hand. How do you know they aren't perfect reproductions ?
Yes, I'm the first one to decry the pollution of history by inaccurate copies of furniture or any other historic design item. But what's with the venom ?
All this talk of knock offs...
All this talk of knock offs stirred something in my memory...
Wasn't there some controversy years ago, where cheap knock offs were being made, but following the money lead back to the licensed holder? I think this was in the late 70's or early 80's....hmmmm
Duplicitous but smart business. Appeal to both highend and bargain consumers without sacrificing prestige
Music business
WoofWoof that practice is/was commonly applied in the music business (particularly "urban" genres), especially prior to the mp3 era. The artist, being signed to major label, is likely to see several pennies on the dollar for each copy sold. The music is also guaranteed to be bootlegged for sale on the street at lower than retail price. So the artist would get involved in the bootleg business himself and likely see more money from record sales that way.
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Have you ever met anyone who has had their work stolen SDR, who has lived in reduced circumstances (I'm not talking about me by the way) in order to develop a piece?
Thats where the angst comes from. Twice now I have seen and experienced what happens to local furniture manufacturers when they can't compete (and they try very hard)...people get the sack, there is an auction and an empty building. What people do with their money is one of the biggest decisions they can make, it has, for good or ill, huge political, economic and social consequences. The damage to local communities caused by outsourcing can be extraordinarily painful, from unemployment to the death of old shopping precincts and much more.
By purchasing too many of these imported products we shoot ourselves in the foot industrially, tooling just sits and degrades and technical skill evaporates, do we need any more IT workers? We have a skills time bomb waiting to go off. I keep my eye on this and rates of apprenticeship have been dropping for years.
Mike might have an argument relating to production technique, perhaps even law but he can never stand on an ethical one, he is a grubby profiteeer and I absolutely stand by that opinion, venemous? For sure.
http://www.nam.org/AboutUs/TheManufacturingInstitute/CenterforManufactur...
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