Long time readers will know that all my shoes have holes in them. So number one on my birthday list is, you guessed it, shoes!
Since I only care about function rather than style, and cause I'm not so greedy to ask any friends to spend more than a tiny bit of money on a present, I was doing some fact finding at the local megamart. While looking through the rows of cheap shoes I came across some shoes with a "P" on them. Not hip to all the various Chinese brands, I blurted out "What is this P!?" Only to see "Pierre Cardin" written on them.
Sure Pierre Cardin makes dress shoes, but I'm 100% positive that they don't make sneakers, especially ones as cheap and nasty as the ones that were there. The most obvious guess is that the people who made the shoes just stamped the Pierre Cardin logo on the shoes. Taiwan is full of illegally used trademarks and logos.
However there is a second option. These could actually be official. Larger companies will sometimes license out their trademarks so it can be stamped on products in smaller markets where they think it will never be seen by people in the big markets, thus getting more money without damaging the brand. Similar to how big western movie stars will only do tv commercials in markets where westerners will never see the commercials.
Regardless, the true shock came this morning when I went to warm up some pizza in my toaster over. My toaster oven is a "Pierre Cardin." This has me quite curious to find out what other things their logo has been put on here either legally or illegally. I can tell that for better or worse, because their logo is on my toaster, subconsciously I do feel that Pierre Cardin is a low quality brand.
That is not necessarily a knock on my toaster though, as it is quite capable of warming up some food, even if it doesn't do the best of jobs at it. But more for the disdain I feel in my heart whenever I see any toaster oven. This is because it always reminds me that there are not really any big western style ovens in Taiwan, so I have no chance to bake all the lovely sweets I adore. Every time I see a toaster oven, it's like it's mocking me, telling me how I'll never have a good brownie for as long as I live in Taiwan.
