Whether you follow the fashion industry closely or not, you've probably noticed and heard the word "heritage" being used to describe young or new brands. Is it overused, or is it brilliant product marketing for a consumer who wants it?

With content to evidence it, heritage is nothing but a cheap farce. It refers to a historic weight and ethnographic richness behind a brand. In other words, heritage is part of an education. A person aware of heritage attributes additional meaning to her clothes beyond immediate aesthetics.

Heritage can be understood implicitly in many ways. Hermès is a perfect example, from word of mouth to the docu "Les mains d'Hermès." Young brands throwing around the word heritage is like a dinner host proclaiming he is "cultured." Yet, his walls are bare, his library is hollow, and later on you realize, he has never left the village.

Yes, just as "couture" is overused (and in most cases, wrongly used) in women's fashion and beauty. It's mostly just laziness on the brands' part; rather than creating something original or actually going back in a brand's history (if it even has one), marketers just slap one of the buzzwords on it knowing that it's the easy route to take to denote "authenticity" or "craft." I'd be much more interested in a brand that actually talked about and demonstrated what its heritage was, rather than just saying it. Burberry is a good example of that -- instead of Burberry "heritage" you get Brit and London. Louis Vuitton also does Icons collections, which immediately calls to mind its famous monogram. You know what its about before you see it.

Thanks everyone for your thoughts on this. I guess the point here is that you actually need to have some history in order to legitimately use the word heritage as a brand attribute.

Overused, but a marketing ploy that grabs the attention of the consumer. I can compare this to greenwashing in the 'green' movement; the world natural is overused, but it works.

Lisa-Marie: Greenwashing is a prefect example. Thanks for your input.