American Apparel in Peril and the Luxury of Guilt

Nadine's excellent post brought up some really provocative issues in terms of our daily, experiential relationship to fashion and consumption. Our desire and our right to know the provenance of what we buy (from comestibles to neon leggings) seems to inform some of the largest current cultural debates, but in my personal life, these arguments sadly tend to disintegrate under mundane if inescapable pragmatics and economic limitations.

When it comes to ethical consumption, it is now a truism that such selective and conscientious practices come at a cost, and often create a marked class distinction, furnishing all the (sometimes true) cliches about affluent and guilt-ridden (usually white) shoppers buying organic, hand-picked arugula and feeling self-congratulatory. I personally can't afford to buy organic or "go green," in the branded sense, so if I wanted to positively contribute, I would have to access an alternative mode of resistance, which ties into Nadine's suggestion that we have yet to establish and implement a truly effective and progressive method to counteract exploitation in production.

Sooo, much like watching the doc Food Inc., reading No Sweat filled me with a temporary sense of indignation and injustice, but left me ultimately with an inchoate sense of frustration and futility, knowing that I'm probably not going to change much.

In an example of cost-prohibitive conscience: I love American Apparel's T-shirts. Their tri-blend v-necks make my heart beat faster and the tops have gained a cultish following, lauded for their perfect light-weight gauge and vintage feel. However, I'll be damned (damned I say) if I'm going to pay $24 for a cotton T-shirt. I'm a student on a budget, and even though I'm fully aware that the elevated unit cost is directly related to renowned Made-in-LA production mode (paying workers in its downtown factory $12/hr), I still don't want to overpay for cotton for the sake of knowing I can purchase with a clear conscience.

Up until very recently, I simply got my AA tri-blends on ebay, where I could buy in bulk (usually 3 shirts for the price of one retail top) from random wholesalers. It was my negotiated approach to anti-sweatshop consumption: the shirts were already fabricated in LA, the workers were paid equitably, but Marika could pay less than in the store. So you can imagine my horror when AA cracked down this past year and have forbidden ebay sellers from offering their products under the guise of being officially licensed: now the ebay shirts must be branded with some kind of insignia to alert shoppers that this is not "authentic" American Apparel. Check it out.