Underground Manufacturing
Jul. 30th, 2006 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zalenaYouth's response to a manufactured world is... more manufacturing!
An interesting article in the Times magazine on DIY manufacturing, which by examining the tshirt business, misses the point of DIY, which is to have non-manufactured artisan-made objects:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/magazine/30brand.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
These kids' parents are upset they aren't becoming lawyers. Apparently the merchant class still rates below the professional class. Can't they be happy their child has started a successful business?
And what happens to these young manufacturers when success means they are required to sell out?
Is selling out a bad thing? I imagine having a company that becomes main stream enough to start making larger social statements. Like Schiaparelli on the eve of WWII, dressing socialists (often from fascist circles) in carrion pink with jeweled insect pins feasting on their flesh.
And the article didn't address whether or not they were aware of the social implications of their manufacturing choices. Whether their expensive tshirts manufactured overseas, utilized child labor, etc.
Clearly my problem is that I have yet to find a commodity on which to sell my ideas. (At one time, it would be considered vulgar to attach ideas to a commodity, sulling all that is Good and Noble with Money.) If I wanted to be crude I could sum it up as "Tshirts are only large enough for slogans. My ideas are much too big to fit on an article of cheaply manufactured clothing."
But then, I'm not one of these bright young things. And I grew up, bohemian, without access to television and isolated from most of pop culture.
An interesting article in the Times magazine on DIY manufacturing, which by examining the tshirt business, misses the point of DIY, which is to have non-manufactured artisan-made objects:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/30/magazine/30brand.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1
These kids' parents are upset they aren't becoming lawyers. Apparently the merchant class still rates below the professional class. Can't they be happy their child has started a successful business?
And what happens to these young manufacturers when success means they are required to sell out?
Is selling out a bad thing? I imagine having a company that becomes main stream enough to start making larger social statements. Like Schiaparelli on the eve of WWII, dressing socialists (often from fascist circles) in carrion pink with jeweled insect pins feasting on their flesh.
And the article didn't address whether or not they were aware of the social implications of their manufacturing choices. Whether their expensive tshirts manufactured overseas, utilized child labor, etc.
Clearly my problem is that I have yet to find a commodity on which to sell my ideas. (At one time, it would be considered vulgar to attach ideas to a commodity, sulling all that is Good and Noble with Money.) If I wanted to be crude I could sum it up as "Tshirts are only large enough for slogans. My ideas are much too big to fit on an article of cheaply manufactured clothing."
But then, I'm not one of these bright young things. And I grew up, bohemian, without access to television and isolated from most of pop culture.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-30 07:24 pm (UTC)