Don’t Be Fooled By the Packaging.

Dear Nieces and Nephews ,

Your Uncle Fishgrease Fitzgerald Franklin III has stumbled upon what he believes is one of the funniest things to ever come across his pupils. Now to the commoner this wouldn't even be funny but to me it's hilarious. Now everyone that knows me in real life is aware of my love of watches and other time pieces…Well imagine my shock and the following laughter when I saw this article from Complex Magazine online http://www.complex.com/STYLE/Product-Guide/Watches/6223 . Sure it looks like 6 black watches and they're all great looking and all of that but to a person like me there's only 3. How is that so Fishgrease? Well I'll tell you. There's a Tissot. There's a Quicksilver and then …..wait for it…..there's 4 Fossils. You're probably saying that I only see one Fossil. Alas, my dear fly-by-night watch wearer, your beloved Adidas, Marc Jacobs and Emporio Armani timepieces are all Fossils. This is what you call accepted deception. I'm not saying it's wrong but it's not exactly what I'd expect to see in a magazine either. Essentially Fossil (who makes and owns some of the better lower end, middle ranking watch labels) is making a killing by stamping other boutique designer names onto their product. In business this is what you'd call a DREAM. You manufacture your same $90 product, stamp another name on it and mark it up by two and sometimes 3 times it's MSRP. This is marketing 101, Diversify your product. Give the consumer what they want even if they don't want it in your product.

*side bar* This is by no means an attack on Fossil for I simply love their products and to prove it 5 of those watches in that case are all manufactured by Fossil. The two that look alike but are different colors are Cartier but the rest of them from top to bottom are all Fossil Products. They include

• Fossil
  
• DKNY (yellow dial)
  
• Zodiac (orange bezel)
  
• Adidas (stainless steel)
  
• Adidas (blue rubber band sports watch)
  

And of all the watches that I own (some 50 +) these fossil derivatives are probably the ones that I wear most often. So there's nothing wrong with the article, I just wish they'd have allowed someone who knew a little more about the diversity of brands to expand the recommended choices as opposed to what they offered in the publication. * end of sidebar*

~fin