Style: When US-Made Goods Aren't Ethical: The Prison Labor Hipster Button-Down

Ya'll, I was really excited to find out out about Made Collection, a site that curates US-made (and delightfully hipstery) goods under a single online storefront. There are plenty of great brands making good-looking clothing in ethical ways, but I've found it hard, in the past, to locate them.

I was on the hunt yesterday for a few back-to-school pieces (things I can teach in that aren't uncomfy), when I came across the Hickory Shirt by Oregon Correction Enterprises. It's basically my dream shirt. I'm bonkers for railroad stripes (I WAS BORN THIS WAY). It comes in a comfy men's size Small. It's made in the US. And it's $36. Wait. What? Because of their relatively complicated construction, US-made button-down shirts usually cost at least twice that.

Maybe you saw this coming before I did: the shirt is made by prison laborers.  Hence the brand name. Hence the low price tag. Just to offer a frame of reference, prisoners "working" in the US are paid a minimum of wage of 23 cents per hour. And a maximum of $1.15. 

Oregon Correction Enterprises "employs" incarcerated people to manufacture a variety of products, including this shirt, which is obviously designed to adhere to hipster aesthetic I love so much. Even weirder is the label reading "Prsn Blu", which I guess is supposed to be funny?

While some argue that "putting prisoners to work makes prisons safer", I'm not interested in buying goods made by captives, regardless of the conditions of their captivity. The Prison Policy Center provides a sobering fact sheet about prison labor in the US.

This was the reminder I needed that US made and ethically made are not truly synonymous.  As marketers identify that hipsters like me will pay a premium for ethically-manufactured products, I'm sure plenty of brands will turn to prison labor, and with much less transparency than the "Prsn Blues" label affords.

The question of how to respond as a consumer to issues like this, beyond demanding more information from reluctant companies, is unclear to me. It certainly damages the ethos of Made Collection as well-- their connection to prison labor makes it clear that profiting from the image of US-made branding is a much greater priority than adhering to their "ethical" mission.  Just like greenwashing, this is bullshit. It's an abuse of human rights, it's anti-union and it's dishonest to consumers. What a timely Labor Day eye-opener.

Consumership and Style: Lifetime Brands: Everlane (and my favorite shirt)

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Children, it is a red-letter day for t-shirts. Everlane has restocked one of my absolute favorites in the world, the Ryan, with an updated fabric and cut. Soft and floaty and lovely! Twenty-five bucks! Made in LA! I am so excited I cannot.

I've had to wait months get my hands on this shirt because Everlane purposely under-manufactures, a practice they explain thusly on their tumblr:

In traditional retail, brands always overbuy. They produce more inventory than they need, knowing 30 percent of it will be put on sale. These sales have been so effective, that brands now create    cheaper versions of full-price products to sell alongside the legitimate sale items. In other words, if you buy something on sale, it could be an original or something created at a lower quality to simulate a sale item. The entire ecosystem is borderline deceptive.

Our approach is simpler: we underbuy. That means, we predict what we’ll sell, and we buy a little less. Our goal is to never have overstock and never have sales. The tradeoff is that we often buy too little. (We’re getting better over time, but it’s a bit of an art.) As Everlane grows, and we accumulate historical data, we’ll become better at these predictions. But we won’t change our approach. We will always underbuy so that we can keep things simple and avoid the games. It’s a long term decision we’ve made that we hope you support.

This indeed makes sense to me. Almost all the stores that I shopped at in Honduras carried overstock goods from US manufacturers who exported their undesirable surplus. It was a visual reminder of the way that some people are expected to subsist on the 'leftovers' of the others.

As I've said before, I'm on the lookout right now for lifetime brands: manufacturers that I can comfortably support with my money and would like to patronize again and again. All of the products I've purchased from Everlane fit the bill so far: they are well designed, durable and really good looking. The company does not manufacture ALL of their goods in the US, but they brand themselves based on a policy of "radical transparency": they choose carefully (and document) their factories, materials and cost breakdowns.

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I found out about Everlane in December when I was hunting for a Very Special Tie to give my bestie, Jordy. I wanted something super rad and full of good vibes that he could wear to his dissertation defense and job interviews. I wanted something hipster-cool and US made, but I couldn't afford anything from The Hillside. Check out this blue selvedge tie, made in NYC, that I found for Jordy through Everlane!  See how rad he looks? See the look of triumph on his face? He passed! YOU ARE SO WELCOME, BRO!

Because of Everlane's manufacturing structure, that tie has come and gone. It's not even on the website anymore. Maybe it will be back this winter. Maybe not. Now I've got my eye on this silk blouse in a fall-y mustard color:

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Like other products I've mentioned, the prices at Everlane are comparable to (or sometimes lower than) prices at mall stores like J. Crew. The cotton tee shirts are an especially good deal at fifteen bucks a pop (they are crazy soft and also made in LA). Everlane keeps prices low by selling only through their website-- no retail, even a pop-up stores.

Plus, the company recently launched a really cool project called Everlane Explores China, sending a camera crew to Donguaan and Shenzhen (the factory city made famous by Mike Daisy's controversial Apple expose) to document the factories they use. The photos are beautiful and compelling, but because Everlane controls the footage that we see, I wouldn't call it totally transparent. Still, it's a great start.

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Ideally, I would really like for Everlane to take things a step further and disclose the wage breakdowns in all the factories they use. Unlikely, to be sure, but I can dream. 

As it is, I feel better about buying internationally manufactured goods from Everlane than from anywhere else-- they are hitting the sweet spot between great style, reasonable social responsibility and the value-added proposition of good-karma products. Psychically, that makes their silk blouse just about as light on the shoulders as any new, internationally made garment gets.

Roots and Radicals: North Carolina and Beyond

As my home state of North Carolina settles in for a fight over heinous new restrictions on voter rights and abortion rights, I keep wondering what I’d be doing if I were in college at this time. Based on my activity during the 2002 beginning of the Iraq War, I’m guessing I’d be awaiting trial for an arrest at one of the Moral Monday demonstrations.

Everything was very clear-cut at that time in my life: if something was wrong, I spoke out against it, often using my body as well as my voice. My relationships suffered. My grades dropped. I felt sure that I was doing the right thing. I didn’t know what I wanted my life to look like, but I was sure I was willing to give it up for a cause.

In 2013, It’s less clear to me how I should respond to the domestic atrocities now sweeping my home state. My politics haven’t changed. My life has. I have a job I love. Students. I make jam and pickles and stack the jars on my kitchen shelves. I guess I put down roots.

I found myself re-listening this morning to an old episode of The Story interviewing Norm Stamper, the former Seattle Police chief who called the shots during 1999’s violent WTO protests. Stamper says he now regrets the way that his department handled the protests (he resigned in the aftermath), and derides police violence at Occupy camps in New York and California.

What impresses me most is Stamper’s willingness to alter his analysis without shifting his allegiances. He has changed his mind about the use of police force in response to peaceful protest, but he hasn’t been radicalized in a direction opposite to the police perspective.

I was radical, once. Or, I thought I was. I used to love reminding people that the word’s etymology can be traced back to the idea of physical roots, the sturdiest part of something, the base of it, and also its beginning. I suppose in this sense, Stamper’s change of heart is impressively radical not because it appeals to any political leftism, but because he has managed to integrate new insight into his identity without uprooting it entirely.

As a college radical I was taught by older mentors to regard the “Battle of Seattle” as a watershed moment in leftist history. Protesters’ violent clashes with police, complete with home-made riot gear, were to be studied and celebrated. What are "old timers" like me telling college students today about the protests at start of the Iraq War?

As someone ten years out of college with first-year composition students of my own, I would never, ever encourage college student to risk their bodies or their futures by seeking arrest. But I also can’t bring myself to regret the decisions I made at age eighteen.

Each Monday, the lawn outside the NC legislature fills up with people determined to change the terrifying direction in which our state is headed. My sisters have been out there. My former students have. It surely isn’t my choice, but I don’t want them to be the same kind of radical that I was.

I’m tired of talking about protesting. I want to talk about rights. I want to talk about the people who are being denied their rights, and how their voices might still be heard. Those who wished to vote and now cannot. Those who will risk their lives seeking unsafe abortions because safe options are no longer available. They are roots of the cause. Or rather, their freedom is. Their words are being lost. Their bodies are being jeopardized. But I can’t stop talking about what radicalism means to me.

What is the most radical part of us? What are the roots? I hope, for my students, the roots are the urge to speak, not the words that come at one moment or another. Issues change. Minds change. The question of risk shifts.  I have a fuller life now, and I am less sure what I am willing to risk. I can't bring myself to regret that, either.

I'm so tired of talking about this. I can't stop. If I could choose a way to talk about this with my students, it wouldn't be with words. I would want all of us fly away from the issues for a while, and rest up high in a struggle for possibility: the possibility of voting, not the candidate. The possibility of a free body, not a pregnancy or an abortion. No protestors. No police. A different part of the tree, where light blends the leaves with the sky.

Up there, in the space of possibility, where we know are allowed to change, maybe we could breathe, for a moment, and then we could look down, and see, clearly for the first time, our actual roots.

People: Boots Riley of The Coup

I've been a huge fan of The Coup since senior year at UNC, rocking out to "Baby Let's Have a Baby Before Bush do Something Crazy".

Boots Riley is still awesome, and he's making a ton of sense in today's interview with SF Weekly.

"Making the music that feels emotionally true to me is first. Because there's a lot of revolutionary music that I don't like and that I won't listen to, no matter how much I agree with it. And there's a lot of music that I love that has nothing to do politically with where I'm at."

"I believe that the people I'm talking to already agree with me — they may just use different words for it — and that the main problem is that people don't think that they have the power to do anything about it. It's not, 'I need to expose these wonderful facts to you so that you see them and you change your ways.'.... The only reason people are on different sides has to do with whether or not they think anything can be done."

Indeed.

image credit: Sam Miller

Consumership and style: Buying US-made clothing and doing my best

I've been thinking a lot about consumership. I make money. I spend money. I stress out about who that money supports and where it goes. I feel like an asshole. I like having nice things.

In the past year, mostly through the mentorship of some awesome friends, I've been trying to change the way that I buy things.  In particular, I've tried to focus on keeping my spending within the US economy for three reasons:

• US-made goods look more rad and last longer
• I can be sure that US-made goods are not made by children (whether the workers earn an actual living wage is another story).
• Buying things from small producers means that more of the money goes to the people doing the work, and less goes to large corporations. Happy to talk more later about why I dislike corporations in general.

Did I mention that US-made goods are also very rad? Let's do some comparison shopping.  I've put together two pinboards, each featuring six pieces of clothing that I like to wear during the summer: t-shirt, leather sandals, denim shorts, canvas tote, sundress, and a chambray button down. Hipster alert. Sorry about it.

The first pinboard is comprised of mall clothes-- specifically J. Crew and Madewell, whose goods I tend to love, and who manufacture the lion's share of their products outside of the US, often in developing countries with relaxed labor laws.

Madewell Linen V-Neck Tee $40, J. Crew Pilar Sandals $118, Madewell Tailored Shorts $60, 

Madewell Double-Handle Tote $88, Madewell Striped Silk Sundress $148, Madwell Perfect Chambray Shirt, $70

The second pinboard is comprised of small American brands-- that means that both the design and the manufacture of the items happens in the US, under the purview of US labor laws which are kind of good sometimes.

Jungmaven Women's Short Sleeve $29, Everlane Women's Summer Sandal $105, Bridge and Burn Audrey Shorts $88
Joshu+Vela Essential Tote $130, Bridge and Burn April Dress $99, O'Harrow Clothiers Classic Chambray Shirt $95

I'm actually kind of startled by how much I prefer the American-made pinboard. The textiles look richer, the cuts look more flattering, the colors more subtle. I want all of it. At present, I can afford none of it. That's cool I guess.

The only item that I own from either pinboard is the Bridge and Burn April Dress, purchased with birthday money at Dearhearts in Durham. It it the perfect, perfect sundress. What's more, the women who own the shop spent 15 minutes with me comparing fabrics, re-tying the straps, checking the way it fit my butt (MOST IMPORTANT), etc. I left with a different size than I thought I would thanks to their  close attention, and I feel great about how I look in it. (Plus they popped a bottle of prosecco and poured glasses all around, including for all the people in the shop browsing who bought nothing, so, bonus).

Ok. So. What if I were to buy everything on both pinboards? I mean, I could never, but what if?

The difference in total between the mall-store group and american-made group is $22. That's it. I would pay a twenty-two dollar premium for more-ethical manufacturing AND better quality. Especially if those items lasted longer and fit more my sense of style more closely.

BUT! Here's the rub: by the end of the summer, almost every item on the mall-store pinboard will go on sale, in some cases for as much as fifty percent off. The prices of the US-made pinboard are unlikely to budge (although I have seen online sales on the Bridge and Burn site, and through other online boutiques that carry US-made brands). These markdown makes a huge price difference-- especially for those of us who are used to buying all of our clothing on sale at the end of the season. All told, if you shop sales, the US-made goods cost closer to 1.5x the price of the mall goods.

So-- what to do? Right now I've settled on this strategy: 

• Buy fewer things, less frequently.
• Keep things nice longer (that means learning how to care for my belongings, which is honestly new to me). This is easiest to do when I really love something in the first place, and don't want to part with it.
• Only buy items for which I've identified a specific need/ use. No duplicates. A lot of times I'll try to wait to buy something until I've found myself in several prior situations where I would have used/worn it if I had it.
• Be cool with making compromises. Case in point: in May I had a last-minute job interview and no interview clothes. You better believe I hauled ass to J. Crew and bought what I needed. Hopefully I'll be able to wear that outfit to job interviews for years to come. It makes my butt look really great.

Listen. There's no way to talk about this without getting on a soapbox. I'm ok with that. I'm doing my best and I'm a nice person. I'm especially interested to see how these priorities will change as my life changes-- having kids, for example, tends to really alter the way a person thinks about consumership/their priorities in general.

It's important to note that these are lucky problems to have, in a lot of ways. It is a HUGE privilege to be able to "shop" for clothing-- not just to buy whatever is  cheapest.  I exist in that place of privilege.

Choice is part of my experience, and it's a choice shaped not just by visual aesthetics, but by a complex web of ethical-identity-group/not group considerations that is very difficult to parse. The things I buy, for better or for worse, help shape my identity via how I look, how I view myself and how I participate in various economies. Understanding this is a big part of doing my best. I hope I'm on my way.