French luxury fashion house Balenciaga has once again made it to the Hot Search list on Weibo (China’s Twitter equivalent). A little over a year after its 4,000 RMB (550 USD at the time) hair tie, a pair of Balenciaga hair clips has caught the eyes of netizens in China. The Holli snap hair clips, often described as “childhood hair clips”, are made of stainless steel and coloured light blue or pink and will set you back 2,700 RMB (372.36 USD, priced at 350 USD stateside).
Netizens duly looked into how much they could get a pair of similar clips for online and found they are about 1 RMB (0.14 USD) per pair either online or retail. If you want to bulk buy, you can get them by the kilo for less from Yiwu, the “capital of small merchandise” in China. Again, the famous one-liner “luxury brands only scam the rich” is back.
- #巴黎世家发卡售价2700元一对 Balenciaga hair clips priced at 2,700 RMB a pair: 14.2 million views on Weibo, ranking number 50 on the Hot Search list
As with the hair tie last time, the pink version of the Balenciaga hair clips sold out quickly across China after the controversy and the blue one followed shortly after.
Brands with such post-modern humour like Balenciaga can easily gain awareness and publicity with controversial headlines. However, for other brands and marketers, these might still damage brand perception, like Burberry’s hot water bottle (it did sell out also).
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