The NYT has actually published something quite interesting and insightful about this, which is very impressive of them. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/12/movies/brandy-hellville-cult-documentaries.html
"Brands like Brandy Melville and their ilk resemble a cult, and even harness some techniques employed by cults to keep their "members" (in this case, high school girls, whether as customers or as workers) in line. The documentary shows how employees were flattered, and then shamed by the leadership so that each would want to be more of a "Brandy girl" (which, the film hints at, usually required disordered eating). There was a strict image projected for "Brandy girls," which many of the former employees in the film detail at length. Being part of the group requires constantly giving your money and time (which is to say, buying marked-up, poorly made clothing, according to the documentary, and then posting pictures on social media) to stay in the group. At times, girls were isolated from family and friends. And as in a cult, there's a small, secretive inner circle (in this case, Marsan and some cronies) that makes all the decisions..."
I just got the post title. It's good.
At this point either there's a "how to make a cult that makes money for you" handbook floating around, or all the documentaries and books on past cults are the equivalent for sociopaths.
I don't quite get why "fast fashion" is the category bugbear. Clothing has been getting flimsier and more disposable with mass production for over a century. Maybe a sesquicentury. So some companies have just taken another step up that ladder.
And as we discussed some months ago, there was that end of an international convention, which led to the Bra Wars. (I think I have the causality right.)
"Brandy Melville" just made my brain come up with "the sailors say Brandy, you're a white whale, what a good fight you would be" and now it's stuck there.
"I don't quite get why "fast fashion" is the category bugbear"
It's made in sweatshops and generates a lot of waste?
Whale oil is at least sustainable, on some timeframe.
You need time travel to keep it sustainable.
Nah, the populations have recovered a lot at this point. You just need to keep the take rate very low.
7: And this is different from the 1995 Macy's rack how?
At a minimum it seems orthogonal to cultish or abusive practices in the stateside sales/marketing.
6 is now how I'll know the song forever.
13: Except fashion is a useful hook for soliciting young girls to your cult.
"I'm announcing a new brand: it's called Brandy" has real toddler energy.
It's a fine brand. What a good brand it would be.
It's like how much more brandy could this brand be? And the answer is none, none more brandy.
Ba-ba-ba, ba-barbara brand. Ba-ba-ba, ba-barbara brand. My ba ba braaaand.
"And this is different from the 1995 Macy's rack how?"
Was the 1995 Macy's rack, whatever that is, also made in sweatshops and did it also give rise to a lot of waste? If so, then it isn't different at all.
"fashion is a useful hook for soliciting young girls to your cult."
To get a bit Minivet, saying "this fashion company is run by abusive weirdos who exploit and abuse young women" is a bit like saying "this airline buys a lot of jet fuel" or "this software company is full of people who are really into computers". I mean, yes. That's the business model.
Macy is a person, not just a rack, asshole.
The 1996 Macy (rack not shown) https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/Jerry_Lundegaard
I have questions about Filene's Basement now.
Let alone Victoria's Secret, which is too on the nose to even make the joke work.
Only Ann Taylor took the cerebral route.
"Victoria's Secret" was so on the nose, that the song had to make fun of the owner living in Ohio instead of the name.
Remember the time Banana Republic was named after banana republics.
One of my great grandmother's aunts married into the Macy family of Nantucket. Her husband was lost at sea whaling.
Thomas Macy, first of the Nantucket Macys, was driven from Amesbury Mass because he provided shelter to some Quakers during a rainstorm. The store guy and the actor are both descendants.
Melville seems not to have included any Macys on the Pequod.
The unnamed fellow whose name in on Brady's locket (on a chain made of finest silver from the north of Spain) sounds a lot like Melville's Nantucketeers, described in a passage inspired by the historian Obed Macy:
And thus have these naked Nantucketers, these sea hermits, issuing from their ant-hill in the sea, overrun and conquered the watery world like so many Alexanders...Let America add Mexico to Texas, and pile Cuba upon Canada; let the English overswarm all India, and hang out their blazing banner from the sun; two thirds of this terraqueous globe are the Nantucketer's. For the sea is his; he owns it, as Emperors own empires; other seamen having but a right of way through it. Merchant ships are but extension bridges; armed ones but floating forts; even pirates and privateers, though following the sea as highwaymen the road, they but plunder other ships, other fragments of the land like themselves, without seeking to draw their living from the bottomless deep itself. The Nantucketer, he alone resides and riots on the sea; he alone, in Bible language, goes down to it in ships; to and fro ploughing it as his own special plantation. There is his home; there lies his business, which a Noah's flood would not interrupt, though it overwhelmed all the millions in China. He lives on the sea...For years he knows not the land; so that when he comes to it at last, it smells like another world, more strangely than the moon would to an Earthsman.
I'll stop now. I really just wanted to post this for ajay, who despises mid-19th century American literature.
6: They rowed calling Brandy
They rowed calling Bra-a-andy
They rowed calling Bra-a-a-a-a-n-n-n-dy
Speaking of mid-19th century American literature:
Great-grandma's beau from Nantucket...
I really just wanted to post this for ajay, who despises mid-19th century American literature.
And mid 19th century British literature! Thackeray is a bright spot in an otherwise ghastly expanse of rubbish. It doesn't start getting good again until the 1890s. You just have to make do with Dumas.
And mid 19th century British literature!
Oh thank God!
DJT stock falls below $25 for those who celebrate.
On reflection I suppose I was reacting to the idea I saw as implicit that "fast fashion" is a noxious innovation of the past 10 years, but in fact it seems more like a term advocates publicized to liken it to "fast food" to categorize a cluster of noxious developments of the past few decades. (They didn't coin it, it seems to have been first found in the NYT in 1990.)
But sweatshop use is still far from unique to that segment of the industry.
40 ????!! Tennyson. George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson and some Dickens is quite good. There's Poe along with Melville
The thing about DJT stock is that, if you believe that Trump is a committed entrepreneur, shares are still overvalued by a factor of 10. In reality Trump and his cronies are going to abscond with whatever money investors put up, so the shares are actually infinity overvalued.
I'm going to be really interested to see, in 5 months when the lockup* expires, how much sucker money is still available.
*Lockup in this case is the term for Trump's inability to immediately sell shares. In this context, it is not a description of what will happen to him after his criminal conviction.
The thing about DJT stock is that, if you believe that Trump is a committed entrepreneur, shares are still overvalued by a factor of 10. In reality Trump and his cronies are going to abscond with whatever money investors put up, so the shares are actually infinity overvalued.
I'm going to be really interested to see, in 5 months when the lockup* expires, how much sucker money is still available.
*Lockup in this case is the term for Trump's inability to immediately sell shares. In this context, it is not a description of what will happen to him after his criminal conviction.
Is there an easy way to find out how much stocks have been bought up retail vs. how much are owned by Trump, other execs and connecteds, and larger investors? Valuing those at the stock peak, that might give an idea of how much fleecing there is to be had in them.
We know Trump owns 90%. If we assume 5% is held by devotees, 5% of current market cap adjusted to $60/share is... $410 million.
So there's no bright, definitive line between what's now called fast fashion & what preceded it, but it's not as simple as just saying all points on a continuum are the same.
Clothes from Macy's in 1995 were vastly higher quality than what Shein sells. The difference is at least as great as that between a 2024 Lexus and a 1975 AMC. So that's inherently more wasteful--a lot of Shein stuff literally can't survive a washing machine (and I'm not talking about unmentionables that wouldn't normally be machine washed), and none of it is built to survive more than a season. Whereas I literally have clothes bought at Macy's in the mid-'90s that are still in my wearing rotation (since fashion hasn't changed since then*). So, regardless of worker conditions, they're not the same thing, nor particularly close.
The other thing is that the premise of fast fashion is quick turnaround: the moment a garment achieves some sort of high profile, whether from a Paris catwalk or a viral video, the fast fashion companies copy it as soon as possible, which they've developed to being able to do within weeks (it used to be a 6+ month turnaround). This requires shoddy construction: there's no time to incorporate quality stitching, thoughtful cutting, etc. Furthermore, because they're chasing flavors of the minute, there's no intent or incentive to make anything that would last. So, again, the model is predicated on wastefulness. Further, it also means that there's even less room for improving worker conditions. Macy's in 1995 was charging enough to be able to pay more in wages, if there was a mechanism to make them do it. But Shein is simply not viable under any conditions but the most exploitative possible.
*actually, Iris has spent the last ~3 years borrowing/stealing a lot of my '90s-vintage clothes, mostly flannel shirts and semi-retro sports shirts
49: I don't think that's right. I just looked it up this morning, and I think it's more like 58%. Although IIRC there's more owners by family members. But I don't think it adds up to 90%.
Anyway, what's depressing is that Trump owns so many shares (almost 80M) that any value above $5 still leaves him with a meaningful chunk of value. We can hope for it to drop to penny status, but I suspect that various suckers plus foreign well-wishers will put a floor of at least $10 on it.
50: Thanks. I saw in further research that earlier examples of fast fashion avant la lettre were Zara and H&M (first US location 2000).
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Two from the Supreme Court today. A procedural decision on how you can sue a state for a taking, unanimous decision written by Thomas. Second was how you calculate the overlapping veterans educational benefits. Jackson for a solid majority in favor of the vet. Kav and Barret concurring, writing to whine about the canon of construction that statutes designed to provide benefits to veterans should be read in favor of veterans. Thomas, joined by Alito, dissents, saying a less favorable to the vet result is the right way to read the statute.
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51: I am not at all knowledgeable on what SEC requires, but given all the shady associated stuff (lawsuits, guilty pleas, shady principals) I am surprised it was allowed to go public at this time and in this manner. Just seems like a shitshow all around.
53: They are going to with the nutcase Trump judge on obstruction of an official proceeding aren't they? From what I read the lawyer seemed like a clown, and was mostly treated with contempt by all, but most looked like they were quite skeptical of the DOJ arguments as well. Including fucking Roberts.
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OMG. I had two city council members reach out and solicit my (local blogger pseud) opinion on different voting items for tonight's council meeting. I feel like my dream of manipulating local politics is starting to take shape.
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40 is only comprehensible if limited to books written by men.
I am surprised it was allowed to go public at this time and in this manner
Apparently they're cracking down on SPACs in general.
I knew vaguely a SPAC worked by a shell company going public and then acquiring the real company, but I only recently received the key bridging insight that that lets the acquired company bypass the usual scrutiny imposed on companies going public.
"Tennyson. George Eliot, Robert Louis Stevenson and some Dickens is quite good. There's Poe along with Melville"
Tennyson is a poet so doesn't count, Stevenson is excellent but late 19th century (I should have said 1880s not 1890s), Dickens, Poe and Melville are unworkable. Eliot I haven't read any of.
58: if you mean Austen then she's excellent but she is the point after which it gets bad. If you mean the Brontes you can keep 'em.
I meant Eliot more than anyone.
Tennyson's poems are long and have dialogue, occasionally bits of plot, he totally counts. Same for Wordsworth but I don't like those. For real, have you read Our Mutual Friend? Cutlery theft. Bleak House is also great ( well half the chapters are terrible, but the other half more than make up for them).
I'm very fond of Trollope, myself. Elizabeth Gaskell, too. You have to like daily life, but I do.
If we're including long plotty poems, Byron? Don Juan is lots of fun.
OT: Duolingo tip of the day: If you have one where you need to repeat what the app says, you can hit the microphone button to indicate that your answer is starting and then hit the speaker button that repeats the sentence. This counts as a correct answer.
Byron was maybe half the monument he thought he was, so still a monument; but he died in 1824 so might be outside the period we're being trolled about. For long plotty poems within the period there's Aurora Leigh?
I really wanted to like Gaskell! Somehow North and South never quite made me feel schooled in the way of Eliot or set on fire in the way of the Brontës (Anne too, fight me), but I should try her again one of these days.
Honestly the real dog during this time period is the French novel. Stendhal is 1830s, the really good Flaubert starts in the late 1860s (I don't love Madame Bovary as much as what came after), and everything in between has just got no alibi. Nothing to touch the hem of the garment of Middlemarch or Villette anyhow.
66: this isn't trolling! I wasn't the one who brought it up!
I will give George Eliot a go. I normally distinguish between literature, which in my head is novels and plays, and poetry. Bit it's still a pretty weak period compared to forty years later when you have Conrad, Stevenson, Jack London, Conan Doyle, Wilde, Kipling, Wells...
"Stendhal is 1830s, the really good Flaubert starts in the late 1860s (I don't love Madame Bovary as much as what came after), and everything in between has just got no alibi"
That's not a huge gap, to be fair. And Dumas is in it, the greatrst French novelist ever to live, holding up the ceiling entirely by himself.
"In reality Trump and his cronies are going to abscond with whatever money investors put up, so the shares are actually infinity overvalued."
No, no, it makes them very valuable because they are an easy way to transfer bribe money to him in arbitrary quantities. Previously you had to book a load of rooms at his hotel.
Anyway, here's a time sink - Build Your Own US Voter
https://www.economist.com/interactive/us-2024-election/build-a-voter/
The biggest shift, by far, in terms of people who voted Biden last time and have now switched to Trump, is apparently "Straight non-white Latina women aged 45-54 from a city in Massachusetts, who are Evangelical and were educated to high school" who were 51% Biden last time but are now 71% for Trump.
There can't be that many of them, so if anyone knows one, ask her wtf.
Actually I'm mainly trying to generate the most unlikely sort of voter I can. I am happy to report that Biden's support among septuagenarian bisexual Latino Hindu women with a high-school education in rural Alaska is rock solid at 82%.
71: I have confirmed this.
I will give George Eliot a go.
You'll hate it! But let me see if anyone has put "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists" online... yes! Yes, yes, yes.
68, 71: no, no love for Balzac or Dumas or Hugo over here. I just can't! Maybe this belongs in the corny genius thread.
73.last: thank you! What a terrific piece of writing. At last I can see what that crashing bore Twain was trying to achieve.
70 is pretty fundamentally unmoored since the fine cross-sections are effectively , but I agree it's fun to play with.
Narrowing down to some of my basic characteristics - California, city, white non-Latino, male, 35-44, postgrad - and leaving out my especially narrowing and still-evolving characteristic of sexuality, then varying only religion, atheists with this profile would be 6% for Trump in 224, agnostics 11%, Jews 20%, mainline Protestants 28%, Catholics 32%, evangelicals 54%.
76: spoilsport. Leave me with my dream of someday seeing Soledad Venkatasubramaniam, still sharp at 82, interviewed on CNN while fixing the spark plugs on her snow machine.
78: I appreciate the use of appropriate local terminology.
Following up a bit on the fast fashion, I know the PNW still had quite a lot of small sewing and fashion firms into the 1990s, and I'm given to understand that most regions did. More local jobs and more local adaptation to taste and climate.
But pricier. Some brands managed to make that a selling point, but they've mostly been caught and ganched. Filson now, who knows when Bihn will go.
63: Charlotte M. Yonge!
Who is so evidently a writer chugging along to make a living that the parodies nearly write themselves. And yet I really enjoy The Pillars of the House for the everydayness of many things, among them a non-agressive male hero.
Huh. Went to check what I thought was obvious and I think it's wrong: I can't tell, but Yonge was writing for didacticism and to give money away, I can't tell if she was even living on her earnings.
Interesting evidence that she was popular among manly men in her day, although famously writing for and with young women and mostly about family life and plumbing. I mean, it seems very reasonable to *me* that someone making his living on an 18th c vessel might miss home life a *lot*, but I can't think of a current everyone-knows parallel. Country music?