My Kona Big Unit definately isn’t boutique 😆

Although it’s very much loved.

A good example of a boutique analogy would be something like Jones.
You can buy one direct from him for thousands and wait years.
Or
You can buy an off the peg number which is very very similar and have it in a few weeks for hundreds.

I suspect that, for most buyers, then a Jones is bought based on what they hope it’ll be (or how they hope it will be perceived) given that it must be difficult getting a test ride. Once you’ve splashed that sort of cash then you’re bound to want to think it’s great and tell everyone so, even though many of us look at it and think that it must be crap!

I suspect that, for most buyers, then a Jones is bought based on what they hope it’ll be (or how they hope it will be perceived)

I had a test ride on a Jones before buying.

I don’t realy consider my Jones to be propper “boutique” though as it’s not a custom built frame.

I didn’t get to test ride my Black Sheep as it is a custom build. But I knew what i wanted and how to get it from other stuff i’d owned and riden so it wasn’t a problem.

jimjam I totally agree, boutique is no guarantee of quality and is sometimes used perjoratively. The GT40 is undoubtedly a better car than many that have carried the prancing horse, but as it carries the same badge as a Fiesta its not a boutique brand.

And in regard to SC, the heckler became entry level when they knocked a good few hundred quid off it, stopped development and limited the spec, paint and graphics. Nothing against them (I owned a nomad and nearly replaced it with a heckler) but SC made a conscious move to expand their range, and downgrade their single pivot bikes to “entry level” status.

m-c, then there are some brands who recognise that and then create their own boutique label which creates the allure and cachet necessary to sell very high end stuff with enough distance from the mainstream brand to stop associations becoming an issue.

eg Shimano with Yuyema. I’d say the Yuyema brand is boutique, even if it is Shimano’s.

Munqe-chick – Member

jimjam I totally agree, boutique is no guarantee of quality and is sometimes used perjoratively. The GT40 is undoubtedly a better car than many that have carried the prancing horse, but as it carries the same badge as a Fiesta its not a boutique brand.

Sure it’s got the same badge as a Fiesta, but the point is that it has everything that could be ascribed to “boutique” and much more – performance, history, rarity, value, exclusivity etc. It makes a mockery of the idea of boutique.

If you’re going to qualify boutique purely by badge snobbery then you are back to a jeans and handbags analogy, ie, it’s something that’s more expensive than an identical or better product by virtue of it’s label and or it’s price tag.

I don’t see any bike as ’boutique’. Bikes a bike. Some look nice, some look shit. They all get covered in mud and be a larf.

Exactly jim jam. Look at the German auto tuning houses, or maybe even Cosworth. Boutique in a large slice of the meaning, but they’re still on mainstream cars.

Just because the GT40 was made by an in house “boutique” racing department of Ford, does that make it any less boutique/special than a Cosworth? There’s probably as much cooperation between Ford “main” (whatever that is) and Cosworth than there was between them and the team behind the GT40

no they don’t coogan, people who say they own boutique bikes only take them out on sunny days, and even then they can’t larf, because you can’t smile and look cool at the same time. Miserable is the look. or pouting.

I sometimes get it wrong and look miserable and pouting when i’m on one of my none boutique bikes or look happy when i’m boutiqued up.
It’s so difficult knowing what look to pull on each type of bike. 🙂

I hope this thread has helped!

Not really.

Maybe I could get charliethebikemonger to make me some toptube stickers with instructions on. That way if I got confused I could just look down and seek the advice of someone in the trade.

What I don’t understand is why something like a cotic is not considered boutique. You hardly get them in mainstream bike shops and to me ’boutique’ = niche

Ooh, but are Boutique and Niche the same thing???

I think Anti-Boutique is the new Niche…

Bouniche?

Or Nichetique.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/boutique

I may be wrong on your planet. On Earth, giant bikes are not of a higher quality than anyone elses. Earthly fact.

Really? I was having a look at an Apollo bike the other day. If you genuinely believe that Giant bicycles are not of higher quality then I suggest you visit your nearest branch of Specsavers, without delay.

I kind of think if anyone has ever heard of the bike you’re riding, it’s not boutique enough. ‘Boutique enough’ is a new concept I just invented to take some of the black and white thinking out of the whole boutique debate.

Under the overall concept of ’boutique enough’, bikes can range from ‘just boutique enough’ at one end of the scale to ‘much too boutique enough’ at the other.

A Jones, for all its rarity and beardy weirdy heritage is somewhere in the middle, ‘just about boutique enough in a dark cellar’ if you like.

If I were to tell you what bikes I owned, you’d never of heard of them because they are all, without exception, ‘much too boutique enough’.

Hopefully this’ll help you frame the debate within more helpful parameters.

Wun…

Hollyhocks. 😡

The main purpose of boutique bikes is to make the buyer feel they are somehow superior to others; that their own choices and taste are more refined and discerning than the Common Herd.

So, person what buys boutique bikes = insecure impotent inadequate individual, basically. 😐

(Runs off to exchange bikes for bog-standard Spesh Rockhopper…)

elfin, make sure you wear you Naomi Klein “No Logo” T-shirt while you’re at it to emphasize your utilitarian ideals.

I’m wearing a very exclusive top-quality Limited Edition BBB T-shirt right now. It’s ok though I’m allowed to. 😀

But elfin, nobody knows what boutique means.
I was just starting to think a similar thing actually.
I’m suspecting that boutique means liked by elitist asshats who would shop at places like velo refined.
I’m glad my turner isnt considered boutique.

Googles velo refined.

Looks like they only sell plastic roadbikes or do they have a custom mountainbike frame builder in a shed out the back. 🙂

what if you’ve got a 10+ year old frame made by a boutique brand, but the decals have worn off, you deliberately leave it like that so only true aesthetes will recognise it, and when they mention it you say “Oh, this old thing?”

Understated-retro-boutique-sandbagging-nichewankery?

Or just laziness?

Stu, they’ll only let you in the “showroom” by appointment. I’ll bet their shop assistants are “consultants” too.
High level tossbaggery.

Stu, they’ll only let you in the “showroom” by appointment.

I take it they wouldn’t let you in then? 😉

Maybe you could wind them up by making appointments and not turning up. 🙂

isn’t it the same fools that had poshbike on titnerweb, you know, 30 quid for a carbon reservoir cap for xtr brakes that’s heavier than the originals 😆

Never been, never tried, never will.