We make and we sell clothes. There is no paradox here. Why did man have to clothe himself up in ancient times? To defend himself from the environment: cold, scratches, bruises, bites. The gear people wore was a constant reminder of the fact that if one was to wander away from the relative safety of the settlement for any purpose, they could just as well get badly hurt or never come back. Nature was unforgiving.

Have you ever been chased or clubbed by cops? Have you ever had to sleep out in the cold because you had been kicked out of your house? Have you ever ran alongside others in a riot? Been involved in a street brawl or bar fight? It's not just nature that's unforgiving. The streets, nowadays, are mean. Did your Von Dutch t-shirt and precious Diesel jeans make you feel any safer last time you had to run for your life?

So just as primitive man had it as a constant reminder on the gear he wore that reality was a bitch, the messages we print all over do just the same: they keep you in touch with the sense of life's little dangers. They make you aware and prepared. Soon, our gear will also protect you against a knife stab or a club swing. Or from the blistering cold. Or from the infectious bite of a rat fed with sewer-digested domestic trash, for years. All this while making you look perfectly cool and fashionable without any damage to your integrity.