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# In the land of the blind
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/in-the-land-of-the-blind/
- Published: 2008-09-16T15:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-24T21:02:00.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Opinion, Santa Monica, #archive-import

IF I ASKED YOU WHAT CALVIN KLEIN, Donald J. Trump, Kenneth Cole, Geoffrey Beane, Michael Kors, Sean John, and Joe Joseph Abboud have in common, most people would be able to say they all sound like males and they are all clothing lines. Just like DKNY, BCBG, Van Heusen, Arrow, IZOD Chaps, Timberland and Bass are all respected American clothing lines.

What most people don’t know is that they are all, and I mean ALL of them, are owned by the same company.

These are all brand identities that are attractive to particular niches in the market-place. The man who buys a Donald J. Trump shirt is unlikely to want to buy products from Sean John and vice versa. It’s called market segmentation and it allows for a variety of tastes and needs to be satisfied.

So how did they all come to be owned by the same company, and why? Well “the market” allows that there are economies of scale to be realized by combining manufacturing costs. We all know this from our own lives, it’s just like when you go to the local grocery store and you can buy two pork chops at $5 a pound or you can buy 20 pork chops at $3.50 a pound. The problem is that you now have to deal with the extra 18 pork chops that you are not going to make for dinner tonight.

These clothing companies take the extra materials that they are using, and if they have different brands, they can use the same materials and make a “ different” shirt with some styling tweaks, add a different label and change the packaging. Also, by having different brands, a company can attract different purchasers, and if they own the brand, they are not losing sales or customers.

Sometimes this is a really good thing. In clothing manufacturing, it allows for a company like Phillips-Van Heusen to have a more stable presence in the marketplace of men’s clothing. Other times, this type of market segmentation can be a dangerous thing, because it can hide the fact that a company is in trouble.

We are seeing that this week, with the fall of Lehman Brothers, the once venerable financial powerhouse, made many investments, through many subsidiaries, and it was hard to divine the real status of the company. It looked great on the outside, but lacked the infrastructure to support it in times of crisis.

It’s rather like Santa Monica. We are a picturesque city that looks great, but with a limited infrastructure to support it. Our roads were laid down in a time when cars,and people,were smaller.We used to be a sleepy little beach community, and soon we are going to be a major retail center on the coast, when Nordstroms and Bloomingdale’s open as major anchor tenants in the renovated Santa Monica Place.

This coming November there is a resident sponsored measure to limit the development of commercial buildings. The proponents are saying it will help the city, and the opponents are saying it will destroy the city.

I’m no traffic engineer, I’m not a land use attorney, I don’t aspire to control how others can use their land. On the one hand I know that the traffic in this town is insane and getting worse. On the other, I know that we are destined to be as crowded a city as London or New York, the only real question is how fast we get there.

I haven’t read enough about Proposition T, as in traffic, to have a clear idea of whether or not I’m in favor of it. And that’s the problem, there is much to be read, sifted, collated, and valued. If I listen to the residents, we have to do something, now. If I listen to the pro-development side, we have to do something now, also, but it is getting government out of the process and Prop. T is not the answer.

I’m not sure I like either of those choices. I want more choices, and I want more clarity. I feel like I’m only getting half the story from both sides, I feel like I am lumped into a market segment for their purposes. The hard part is, this is not like buying a shirt, or investing in a company. This is my home.

The old saying goes, “In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” Right now, I feel like I’m blind, and I don’t know which ‘one-eyed man’ to follow. I’d like to hear more from my readers on this issue.What do you think? Who do you believe? Which ‘one-eyed man’ do you follow, and why?

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 16, 2008.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/091608.pdf?ref=smdp.com)