American Apparel

I chuckled at the phrase “benevolent dictatorship” which was used to describe American Apparel. First of all, what business is not “like” a dictatorship? Each company has a boss that can command his employees to do what he wants, that is why they get paid. The statement is accusative and not grounded in reasonable reality. Rather than a critique this essay is more of a feminist rant against the exploitation of women. The author also brings up race, I found this line particularly humorous, “A large number of Asian and black models, as the sexual nature of the imagery can be seen to encourage the belief that non-white women are more sexualized and/or submissive.” Can one be anymore dramatic and irrelevant? Maybe Charney (owner of AA) likes Asians and black women. What about all the sexual portrayal of white women, which is exponentially more common? I just don't see the need to always make things about racism.

Anna Kealey's self-righteousness is very opinionated. I do not think it is anybody’s right to dictate how a company promotes itself. People who do so are the reason unconstitutional laws get passed. Although I can understand the frustration of seeing clothes promoted through sex (in some people’s eyes), it is not the company’s fault but the people's who are attracted to such advertising. If anything, I am angrier with outspoken critics who criticize sexual provocative imagery. I for one do not find sex unethical or immoral, but natural and beautiful. I believe American Apparel is perfectly ethical in not only producing its products but promoting them as well.

We're Here to be Bad

This article was particularly interesting because of its insightful understanding and depth. Not only does it make controversial claims about our current design paradigm but it goes beyond it to offer a solution, incite rebellion even. The article brings up several important issues. My favorite is the issue about the illusion of choice. Coca-Cola versus Pepsi for example both offer the same product with a vastly different image. What drives me mad is that neither is good for people's health yet those are the drinks offered everywhere, before water, tea, or any other drink for that matter.

Illusion is just a minor issue however; there are also the issues of image, information, art, and greed. How we deal with each of these issues has important impact on the future and for the most part I agree with almost everything this article tries to say. Unfortunately, for the life of me I cannot see the practicality of all the solutions brought up. Designers who do not want to follow the marketing goal of selling as much products as possible will simply not get paid. The only way this solution would work is if all designers rejected the system all at once, but that simply won’t happen. And even if the best designers rebel there will be numerous bad designers who will be eager to replace the good designers. At the beginning this article points out how easy being good has become.

Branding the Individual

Jane Pavitt tries to imply that consumers can customize themselves to make themselves unique, that consumers have limitless possibilities and choices... I disagree. I disagree more with the message the article tries to get across than the reality it tries to describe. Although I can accept the reality described in the article I don't appreciate it. I hate consumerism and I hate that society is obsessed with it. I do not think we have a wide variety of choices, instead I think we lack them. I don't think that anything anyone wears is unique unless they themselves crafted the item.

To be specific, I thought the message this article was trying to get across was that consumers have the power to choose and determine the direction of the market. It was a message intended to empower consumers and inspire them to take shopping more seriously if they weren't already. It portrayed our ability to design ourselves as endless and limitless, but for me the limitations are all to obvious. I'm not talking about the obvious financial limitations which implies that only the rich truly have freedom of expression. Not only because they can get high end products but also because they can probably order customizable ones. In this case, yes the consumer truly has limitless possibilities.

However, what about the regular Joes? Although this article does touch upon socio-economic classes and counterfeit products it doesn't mention the fact that we can only choose from a selection of products that were already design. We can never truly have what we want but only get what we think is the best design out of the designs already available... What we (consumers) lack is the ability to customize and improve on already available designs. Fortunately, I think this is something we are slowly beginning to realize.

The Impotence of Being Earnest

My first reaction to “The Impotence of Being Earnest” was that it’s sad but true. My favorite part was the one that stated that nihilism always beats ideology. It made me laugh and feel all warm and fuzzy. Mainly because I think it’s true because to me it seems like we are always under the illusion that things matter but they rarely if ever actually do. Granted, I’m probably more of a nihilist than anything but my worldview usually depends on my mood. Sometimes I believe God exists sometimes I don’t, sometimes everything seems interconnected other times everything seems disconnected. I don’t have a problem believing in all possibilities.

Unfortunately the article doesn’t go beyond pointing out the hopelessness of first things first manifesto. I would like to argue and say that this article is wrong but I can’t. I completely agree… everything has been more or less reduced to a joke. Words that used to carry impact 50 years ago now mean very little. The article humorously points out the word revolution describes clothes more than any movement in society today. This just goes to show how little words are beginning to mean and as I go through life I find our language less and less descriptive. I sometimes find myself unable to adequately describe my feelings or my thoughts and ideas. This is an exaggeration of course… I’m just suggesting that communication is evolving beyond language. Music and art can sometimes represent my mood better than words.