the district

Porn star come American Apparel Model Faye Reagan aka Jillian. (get it?)

Critics of American Apparel advertising who claim that it is virtual soft-porn have recently gained some fodder for their argument. While this is apparently not new news (file under: I learn interesting things when I talk to my brother) American Apparel has at some point begun featuring porn stars in their print and online advertising efforts.  While this is hardly the venue to discuss the implications of pornography and perpetuating gender inequality, I do think its fair to assume that such a move will not be received warmly by the feminist community at large.  One has to wonder how American Apparel has continued to do so well amongst the specific class of consumers and t-shirt companies wishing to use an ‘ethical’ blank, despite the company’s continued absurd antics towards women.  (At least) 5 sexual harassment cases, pedophile-baiting photography, and now the use of porn stars for models, yet American Apparel continues to dominate as the source for blanks for socially responsible t-shirt companies and consumers.  It don’t make no sense, and those are my two cents.

In a seemingly odd new PR strategy, Cotton Inc (American Producers and Importers) has begun a web-based campaign to discredit general environmental wisdom, such as the advantages of organic cotton in an effort to enhance their own ‘greenness’. Using such tools as an online game-show, the Cotton website quizzes contestants to differentiate between green-washing and actual facts about living in a more sustainable fashion. Questions include such generalities as “True or False: Its always better to buy local produce?”, which is of course false, but misses the point that it usually is true. Unfortunately, this kind of misleading information only discourages people from adapting better practices by allowing them to rationalize-away anything. The quiz goes on to discredit organic produce in general, and organic cotton in particular with such gems as “All cotton comes from a plant, so it is renewable and natural.” The move seems baffling, as one might think that encouraging the sale of all cotton might be a goal of the Cotton Board. In the humble opinion of this organic cotton salesman, it is not necessary to denigrate all things organic in an effort to make conventional cotton seem not so bad.

You can take the quiz at the Cotton Incorporated website, and while you’re there, feel free to tell them what you think.

Ok, well maybe that it is not technically true, or even a little bit true for that matter, but John kruse’s new website “How to Start a Clothing Company” is a welcome addition to available online resources for budding t-shirt entrepreneurs. The site features simple straight forward design and some pretty insightful information to boot. The content varies between advice from established t-shirt producers like Johny Cupcakes (visited his store on Newbury and understand it even less now) and Eric Terry from Linty Fresh, to more practical information about taxes and incorporation options. Posts are also neatly divided into useful categories such as Design, Marketing, E-commerce etc. While the site is still clearly in its early stages, it is definitely worth checking out, if not for anything more than some of the interviews. Additionally, it should be interesting to track the growth of content as the site’s founder progresses down the road with his own t-shirt line Mediocore Clothing.
on a side note, sorry for the dearth of posts lately but I was in Hotlanta.

The nation’s largest apparel trade show has introduced an ‘eco’ component to this August’s show with Ecollection.  The Ecollection will be one of many themed sections of Magic, which as the name implies will feature environmentally responsible labels in special recycled booths, with ‘green’ signage.  In addition to showcasing the green-labels , the show will house Lounge 22 for attendees, which will feature bammboo furniture and Cradle to Cradle certified textiles. To top off the new show, in typical Magic fashion (non pun intended) Ecollection will host its own seminar series with some very prominent speakers addressing topics of sustainability in the apparel industry such as representatives from Patagonia, and less obviously Nike’s corporate responsibility office. As usual, Magic will take place Aug 25-27 in Las Vegas.

ed. note: I wanted to wait on this one until it the article was publicly available online. You can see the complete version here in the WSJ.

“If you’re offended by sexual innuendo or masturbation or sexual coloring books — if you’re offended by any of these, then don’t work here,” Mr. Charney says, [apparently unaware that in this country employees are legally entitled to a workplace free from sexual harassment].

This gem of a quote from our friend, American Apparel founder and complete douche-bag (we finally decided), Dov Charney appeared in last weekends front page lambaste of the company in the Wall Street Journal.  Ok, lambaste might be a stronger word than might actually be accurate, but I take my journalistic cues from Matt Drudge.  The article details American Apparel’s many financial woes particularly in the arena of bookkeeping know-how and liability from the Dov factor.  Despite robust growth in 2007 to almost 400 million fucking dollars, AA stock is down more than 40% since its IPO intended to raise much needed cash to finance new store openings.  My question after reading these numbers is who the hell is buying this crap?  Even if you count every hipster in Brooklyn, $400m is a lot of gold lamay hot-pants.   Personal feelings about AA aside, I can’t possible imagine how the bottom isn’t going to drop out of this fad.  According to the WSJ AA now has more than 187 stores packed with some of the most ridiculous looking garments I have ever seen.  All of this really just leaves me baffled. Anyway, if you are looking for coherent analysis, read the article because you certainly aren’t going to find it here, and frankly I should probably be working now.

Every couple of years some non-profit organization (War on Want) comes along to make allegations of sweatshop abuse against a major clothing retailer to call consumers’ attention to the deplorable plight of the global garment worker. This rounds’ target is Banana Republic, which is surprising for two reasons; first BR is part of the Gap group which is generally regarded as one of the better companies with regards to their labor compliance following changes made after their own sweatshop scandal. The second reason I was surprised to see the new complaints regarding Indian factories get headlines (in the UK’s Independent) is slightly more cynical. In the year 2008, is anyone in the US or UK really surprised that working in an Indian garment factory is probably a pretty lousy endeavor? Every time new complaints come forward, that particular brand’s sales drop for a quarter or so, and a few embarrassed corporate officers hold a press conference and say “We had no idea, its all our sub-contractors fault, we promise to get better.” Life goes on and other retailers pray that they will not be the next sacrificial lamb of the industry.

Now I should take a moment to clarify here, that I am well aware of the difficulties of overseeing a supply chain that spans dozens of countries and several continents, with contractors doing their best to hide problems. This is not say that North American apparel brands are free from blame, but rather that the very model of how apparel is produced does not work if you are concerned with labor and environmental standards. The fundamental problem is that treating workers (and the environment) better takes money, and buyers (at the wholesale and retail level) are not willing to pay it. Competition is so fierce amongst factories and even countries to win garment work, that there is very little incentive for factory owners to raise the bar. In other words, when companies squeeze every penny that they can out of their suppliers, than it shouldn’t be a surprise when those same suppliers spend less on things like taking care of their workers or processing wastewater. The fact that Wal-mart is the most successful retailer in the history of retail based on their delivery of the lowest prices, places significant guilt on consumers themselves.

Ultimately, its a circular question to try and place blame for sweatshop abuses in the garment trade. Is it the factory committing them, the American companies paying them, or the end consumers turning a blind eye and buying the products? In my opinion, it doesn’t matter, its a ‘none of us, but all of them’ kind of problem. Luckily encouraging a fix is much easier than assigning the blame. The best thing that any one individual can do is to be responsible for their own purchases, and know where they come from. Just as retailers respond quickly to price sensitivity, so to do they respond to ethical concerns, as the recent green-craze has demonstrated. If customers are vocal and vote with their dollars, than retailers have no reason not to want to improve their reputation.

More picts when i get back to the office tomorrow.

Organic was the magic word this year at ISS East, the trade-show for the screen-printing world. Despite the triumphant let down of the “Green Pavilion”, which was actually more like the “green bookcase”, there were quite a new green offerings. First of all, everyone sells organic t-shirts now, so I am not even going to list them all. The word on the street however, is that the demand (at the production level) has finally outrun the supply and there is a serious yarn shortage in the works right now. While every manufacture I spoke with admitted the yarn shortage, none seemed to be willing to say that their supply-chains would be affected, only everyone else’s. Apparently, when Wal-mart and Target decide they want to start buying up something, it starts to get scarce. Unfortunately, this really puts the hurt on the smallest of producers (with the least buying power) who are actually the most progressive.
Despite everyone jumping into the game, the gap between those who believe in and understand the product versus those who just know their customers want it is vast. As one unnamed sales-rep put it, “At this point if you start getting picky about the dyes and origin, you will get nothing. Its too competitive, just be happy you are able to get something stamped organic and don’t worry about the rest.”

Some show highlights (for me anyway) were getting a free barney-the-dinosaur colored organic T from a unibrowed American Apparel model, getting to watch the giant embroidery machines stitch eagles in front of flags, and learning how to say “phthalate” and why they are bad. Continental’s new reduced carbon t-shirts from Turkey were also quite impressive and feature by far the most informative and complete literature I have ever seen from an apparel manufacturer. Lastly, while it may have been short I was totally stoked to meet my screen-printers face to face.

By the way, if anyone knows how to turn this Greyhound voucher I got on the bus down into $20 please let me know, I am still down ten bucks from the nickel slots.

So, I don’t know how I missed this one last week, but American Apparel founder Dov Charney’s Sexual Harassment lawsuit began trial last week. Efforts to arbitrate the deal (I am guessing ‘pay-off the accuser’) have fallen apart and court hearings are underway. No details yet on how long the trial is expected to last, but I will keep you updated on any news. While this is the third (or fourth?) such formal suit filed against Charney it is the first one to make it to the courtroom. Does paying your machine-operators arguably more than anyone else in the garment industry compensate for being a misogynistic douche-bag? Consumers, You decide.

The latest (and possibly largest) entry into the organics blanks field is Anaheim based Alstyle. They just start shipping last week, bringing the t-shirt behemoth’s economy of scales into organics. No word on the quality yet, although the samples are already in the mail. The shirts will be available in 7 colors, although neither of the two sales reps I spoke with for this article had any idea about whether or not environmentally friendly dyes were utilized. To me this is indicative of a greater problem of the major manufacturers entering into the organics market without a fundamental understanding of the concept. While I applaud the increased use of organic cotton, I think that it may be rather disingenuous for a manufacturer to present a product as ‘environmentally friendly’ to consumers without the knowledge to know what that really means. This is additionally problematic for consumers trying to make informed purchasing decisions by being able to differentiate between the green-washed and the “real-deal”. Ordinarily I might argue that these new blanks are a positive step-forward by introducing new customers to organic, but the difficulty comes when $3 organic blanks dyed with harsh chemicals and sewn under less than ideal labor conditions are directly competing with the smaller labels trying to make more of their supply chain “right” (and of course charging higher prices).

Readership; please weigh in.

Fair Trade Apparel by Counter Sourcing has slowly begun cropping up in university book stores across the country, demonstrating the feasibility of a t-shirt that actually takes care of its workers. As customers increase their sophistication of the apparel manufacturing process (in no small part thanks to AA’s marketing of their vertical integration), a small but significant market has emerged for clothing that is genuinely sweat-shop free, an often misused and ambiguous label.
Originally applied to farmers, and often considered problematic for manufactured goods, the concept of Fair Trade ensures that third world producers are paid a fair price for their goods sold in developed world markets. The many difficulties associated with “fair trade” manufactured goods were so daunting to Trans-fair USA (the only fair-trade certifier in the US) that they opted out of certifying apparel in a lengthy report published last summer. The major obstacle revolved around the question of whether or not it is acceptable to name a good fair-trade even if not every part of the production chain has been certified (farmer, spinning mill, knitting, cutting and sewing).

As it applied to Counter Sourcing, 17% of the company’s annual sales is returned in various forms directly to those involved in the cutting and sewing of the garment, the most labor intensive steps of manufacturing. Until recently Counter Sourcing was primarily offering only large quantities of custom printed T’s and sweatshirts to its customers, although has recently teamed up with District Cotton to help enter the blanks market.