Hello again :)
I am currently sitting at a booth in Chick-fil-A on a Friday night writing the beginning of this blog post while watching my two tiny humans out of the corner of my eye as they run around in the play place.
Yeah, you can guess how productive that was.
Anyway, it’s November! How did we get here…..?
I’m sure you can guess the topic for this month.
Black Friday. I didn’t write about it last November, so it's perfect.
So….Black Friday! Whew! Lots of thoughts…..
First of all, I used to LOVE Black Friday. Eeek.
I would count down the days and plan, plan, plan to buy as much as I could. My first job was at the one and only Payless ShoeSource back in 2009.
(Technically, my very first job was at a mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant just down the street from our apartment. But it only lasted a few months as the owner had only seven fingers and a lazy eye. You might say I was jet-set for the mall pretty quickly).
Working at Payless laid my foundation for so many things:
Learning how the retail business works
Understanding basic tasks of processing, unpacking, and stocking product
Interacting with customers and learning how to ask the right questions to understand their needs
Learning how to be on time…. (thank you Julie)!
Ringing people up and checking them out (a pretend game I used to play as a kid ;)
And it also exposed me to the concept of an employee discount
Working at the mall also meant working nights, weekends, and holidays. And what’s the biggest holiday for retail? Black Friday. It’s the Superbowl of retail. Extreme discounts, long lines, extended hours, the whole enchilada. Not only do managers prep their employees but companies hire extra to cover the additional foot traffic and destroyed sales floors.
Although there are various theories on the history behind Black Friday, the most popular one is that throughout the year, retail stores operate in the red- meaning at a loss, but on Black Friday, they end up making so much money that they finally operate in the black- a profit. Apparently this isn’t exactly accurate but this is the theory that has stuck.
When I was working at Payless (and sadly for years to come), I saw Black Friday as the event of the season and my opportunity to get a lot of clothes. Something that was difficult as a kid. We never went without, but being paycheck to paycheck my whole childhood and finally earning my own money- I couldn’t wait to spend it how I wanted. Having an employee discount on already cheap shoes?! Sign me up. My mindset was quantity over quality.
Even while I was at FIDM, (2013-2015), my outlook on this didn’t change. It may have even perpetuated it. The more retail stores I worked at, the more I adopted the habit of buy, buy, buy. One retail store in particular that I found myself at because of interviews for Black Friday was Victoria’s Secret.
Although I now have a very different opinion of the company, back then- I loved it! The store had been a complete mystery to me as nothing in my closet had the VS label. (I’d never even been in the store before that interview). But my admiration for the brand began my first shift and continued to grow. It wasn’t just the Love Spell body spray or Bombshell bras that caught my attention- it was the positive female energy. Electric and contagious.
And this crossed over to my excitement for consuming products; only ramping up the longer my employment lasted.
(P.S. Love Spell?? Come on people. There were so many other scents that didn’t smell like high school prom).
Most retail employees dread Black Friday but I actually really liked it. The energy, the hype, the discounts. It was a marathon of standing, wrapping, ringing, yelling, and running to the back room for quick grabs at a hodgepodge of potluck food. The 8-hour shift flew by. And the second 5-6 hour shift flew by as well.
Fast forward years later, I came to understand the systemic and disastrous aftermath of making cheap products and how Black Friday just exacerbates it. (If you want to read in detail about how I came to this, head to my main blog page and click on the post “Tell Us Your Story”).
Working in retail for almost 10 years only showed me the brand and consumer side but not the story of how the products got there in the first place. We logically know products don’t just appear on shelves and racks but we don’t want to think about the people who make them.
For me, Black Friday began to highlight two big realities:
The true cost of making physical products and the psychological mind warp that becomes justifying buying things merely because they are on sale.
If you want a two hour rundown of how this happens, watch the documentary The True Cost available for free via Tube and for rent via Amazon Prime.
Why didn’t I see the actual cost and implications of cheap products before? I learned how to cost out a garment at FIDM - if a shirt is being sold for $10, the amount of money that goes towards labor ends up being pennies after the retail markup, manufacturing costs, brand margins, agent fees, transportation costs, etc. But at the time, I was only concerned with getting the information right so that I could turn it in on time and hopefully get a good grade. I remember being confused about the labor costs but not having the time to ask more questions about it. Or rather not making the time. I should have though. It’s so clear as to why I hadn’t given it as much thought and concern as it deserved. As students, we were focused on getting good grades because that’s what was instilled in us from a young age. It was the "important" thing.
“Get good grades so you can pass the class so you can graduate so you get a good job”
……….so that you can make more cheap products……….
Here’s a cost breakdown of a simple T-shirt. This is from page 10 of Fashion Revolution’s 2020 Money, Fashion, Power zine.
See that tiny little orange line at the bottom indicating labor costs? 18 cents. A 29 euro shirt, ($31.60 dollars), in this example, means that the person making it only would earn 18 cents.
18 cents.
And most people don’t want to spend more than 10 bucks on a plain white T.
Chloe Marks, a Product Developer at Mother of Pearl said it so perfectly in the documentary Fashion Reimagined:
“You can’t buy a T-shirt for 2 pounds unless something terrible has happened along the way. It is impossible to make that garment and have the supply chain be correct. It is physically impossible.”
The Money, Fashion & Power zine also goes into depth on what a living wage really entails.
Despite the cost of living wages varying greatly from country to country, 18 cents is not enough anywhere. Period.
Addressing the second neon sign of Black Friday and cheap products:
The psychological mind warp of justification.
Ohhh how I’ve fallen into this trap.
“Woh! It used to be $99 but now it's $79!! I don’t wanna miss the deal! It’s been on my list….”
Have you ever gone to a store for one thing and come out with five things even though you didn’t need them? Why am I even asking this? Of course, you have. It happens to all of us. T.J. Max and Marshalls are the worst for me. Why does it all look so appealing?!
“Thanks Marshalls! I didn’t realize I needed a suitcase, makeup bag, home decor, specialty mixed nuts AND a cheap cute sweater!”
My muscle of putting up (and keeping on) the mental blinders while at stores has strengthened in recent years but I still occasionally succumb to the bright lights, poppy music, and beautiful objects. They do it so well. Stores aren’t just selling products. They’re selling a feeling. They’re selling how you will feel after buying xyz product and who you could be with it.
(Psssst - here's a little secret that will save you years- buying a bunch of stuff doesn't make you happy- who knew?!).
So is there a medium? A balance? Are you a monster if you buy cheap products or participate in Black Friday? My answer is no because the realities are…..well……real. Most people (myself included), don’t have $250 to spend on “more sustainable” clothing or a more expensive product that would potentially imply that the company did pay their labor fairly). This is where the argument of sustainable fashion being a class issue comes in. If sustainable or conscious fashion is partially about fair labor wages than that means the price of the product has to increase to accommodate for paying their labor fairly. And if a product is more expensive, then only a certain amount of people will be able to afford to buy it.
I don’t blame people for buying cheap products because I myself still fall in the category of “that’s what I can afford.” So if that’s what I can afford, I do my best to only buy what I need. And honestly, that’s really hard when I enjoy fashion and clothing so much. I’m not perfect but I do my best to pull back on the shopping and enjoy what I already have.
Something that’s helped is staying out of the physical stores. (And moving away from a huge mall........The mall here is quite pitiful). And online shopping has never really been temping for me, as I love to feel and try on clothes or shoes.
The 2015 film The Minimalists: A Documentary About the Important Things always comes to mind when I’m tempted at the store. (Available for rent on Apple, Amazon Prime & YouTube).
Joshua Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus share their story of how gaining monetary success and buying more things never actually made them any happier and how we as humans place too high of value on physical objects. Watching it a few years ago was hard, as the finger was pointed at myself; someone who has always gotten very excited about the experience of purchasing physical objects. My excitement for it has gone down drastically now. (And I’m excited to see their second documentary, available on Netflix).
Another interesting factor in the conversation of Black Friday is how some companies have decided not to participate. To fully opt-out.
While sitting on the couch with my in-laws after Thanksgiving dinner, my dear friends Jonas and Joy (www.jonasroams.com / @jonasroams and www.joyfrost.com / @joyfrostmusic ) texted me this photo:
He admitted, “I was hoping for some special discount and part of me was annoyed at first but the other part of me had mad respect for them.”
He hit the nail on the head.
Do you have respect for a company that closes their doors for one day in the name of not over-consuming, while knowing that they could have made SO MUCH MONEY that day?
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
So how did Black Friday go this year for me and my family? Did I participate?
Yes, but in a radically different way than years before. I didn’t fully opt in or fully opt out. I cherry-picked from a somewhat disinterested demeanor. We had already made a list of a few things to get consisting of Christmas gifts, birthday presents, and one “need” item- workout shoes for my husband.
Years before, I spent Black Friday either working at the mall or shopping at the mall but this year was a mix of spending time with family, traveling, seeing Christmas displays & lights, having our two kids run around at the mall play place and going to one store. (I find myself at play places a lot. They’ve got to get their energy out somehow)!
And boy oh boy was I surprised at how I felt walking in that store. The Nike outlet at Station Park in Farmington, Utah. I’ve never really been a fan of Nike but this was where my husband wanted to get his workout shoes from and the moment we stepped into the store I wanted to turn around.
The line wrapped around to the back, bright red signs everywhere, chaos ensuing, and as my tiredness set in……… I couldn’t be more disinterested. A complete 180 from my former self. And as we drove away, we saw one store with all the lights off and doors locked with a big sign that read: “opting out.”
I’m so annoyed that I didn’t take a picture of it, but a sign (from online) of outdoor retailer REI.
I’d like to wrap this all up in a pretty little Christmas bow, but feel unable to because….. it’s not pretty. It’s not black and white. It’s multifaceted.
Black Friday perpetuates a culture of overconsumption, but at the same time, it’s helpful for people who can only afford a certain dollar amount, especially around the holidays. It drives business but mostly big businesses that don’t need the help. It keeps us, (in the Global North), in a mindset that things should be that cheap while the people who make the products suffer in poverty systemically, generation after generation.
I applaud the brands and designers who have boycotted Black Friday. It's no small thing for a company who profits off of people buying more and more of their products to take a stand and loudly say, "you don't need this many things."
But what about individuals? What’s one to do who
cares about the people who make the things we use every day and the clothes we put on our backs but
can’t afford super high-end products, but also
wants to be more mindful of how many products they purchase?
Shop your own closets first and when buying, buy used/preloved. And if you feel so inclined, make some noise about it. The change will catch on more quickly, the more people who speak up.
It’s very easy for me to feel that my “making some noise” is, in relation to how many fashion blogs are out there, a drop in the bucket. It is a drop in the bucket but I think it's worth it.
And while we're in the stores and online? Either don't participate at all or try to stay as conscious as possible when faced with that big neon sign reading BLACK FRIDAY SALE
and remember- love people and use things, because the opposite never works.
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