Vineyard Vines has gained a somewhat substantial market share in the past few years helping to build a market for "preppy" dress and casual clothes. It often competes with brands such as Polo and J. Crew and has proven itself that it is here to stay. They have become well known for putting prints on shorts and pants. The company was officially incorporated in 1992 by two brothers, Shep and Ian, both of whom quite corporate jobs in Manhatten to found the brand.
Vineyard Vines originated on Martha's Vineyard, an island south of the Cape, and draws much of its design and functionality from the lifestyle of New Englanders and the north east.
I thought i'd check out this brand that is the South's so called "answer to vineyard vines". Lets take a look.
Upon going to Southern Tides website, the first tab I went to was "Our Story". The first thing I see is a guy looking to be around my age, maybe 20, 21, who is most likely still going through puberty. At first I was unsure if this in fact was the founder, but it seems as though I was not mistaken.
The first constructive criticism I'd like to share with our friend, lets call him Frank for the sake of identification, is that he might want to rethink the name of his brand. The name Southern Tide is somewhat misleading because he directly says in his first sentence that "the idea...was not born on the coast of South Carolina" but in fact was draw from the "historical architecture and couture clothing to high-performance sports cars" he found on a trip to Italy.
So it seems like maybe a better name for this brand would be something like "A touch of Italy" or "Mediterranean Tide" or even "Musk of Mussolini" because this guy doesn't seem to be drawing his "inspiration" from the deep south or even our beloved Carolina's.
The second thing that I would like to address to our friend Frank is that if all of this inspiration hit him like a brick when he went over to Italy for a couple days, why isnt it reflected in his clothing? I mean I literally feel like i'm on vineyard vines website while im browsing through the Men's clothing section. There are pictures of preppy ass bros in Polo's, pullovers, and kacki's galore. I mean jesus h. christ, I could have started a business like this and taken a whole bunch of Polo clothing and Vineyard Vines clothes and put a Bear on it for a new logo and declared it "Newark Knots" and called it New Jersey's answer to Vineyard vines and it would really be the same thing.
Listen, the logo isnt bad, and the shirts look like they are pretty good quality, but I mean cmon, lets see some friggin originality. And as for the south's "answer to Vineyard Vine", you guys might need to do a little better then this. It kinda just seems like you kiddies wanna be northerners. But then again, who doesnt.
Apparently our friend "Frank" is actually an Allen.
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