Culture

This last week, three things popped up in my RSS aggregator which have been in the back of my mind ever since. The first was an article about the appalling working conditions at a large Chinese factory, which had led seven workers to commit suicide. The second was Isaac Likes’s blog post entitled, “Are New Zealand designers giving the consumer value for money?” The third was a news report on the distribution of “Stop the Asian invasion” pamphlets in Christchurch. The issues raised by the first and third pieces shed light on Isaac’s question, I think. Or at least they do where menswear is concerned.
There is no doubt that locally-designed menswear is expensive. A (beautifully tailored) Crane Brothers suit starts at about $1300 off the rack; a (deliciously soft) MisteR cardigan will set you back almost $300; (immaculately cut) jeans by Marvel retail for a shade under $200. Who wouldn’t be tempted to pick up a trendy $300 Topshop suit instead? Well, perhaps someone who has put on one of Murray Crane’s jackets and suddenly realizes what a suit should feel like, let alone look like; perhaps someone who just has to grin to himself, knowing that Mickey and Ra have lined his waistcoat with red and white owls; perhaps someone who revels in the delightful details, in how Linz and Sam have shaped their shirt collars just so or cut slits on them to show off his tie from behind. And it’s not just the visuals, it’s the texture too; there’s 100% cotton and then there’s 100% cotton, and there’s no turning back from pure wool knitwear.With quality, of course, comes longevity; it is commendably counter-cultural for designers to reject disposable fashion and planned obsolescence, to challenge the brevity of our collective attention span.
 

But most of all, as always, it’s about people; it’s about the people who produce our clothes under humane conditions for a fair wage; it’s about the talented people who will lose their jobs if we keep shipping them overseas; it’s about getting to know the designers and how much they love their art, how their social and environmental ethics influences their work, and how little they’re driven by fame and fortune. In some of these cases, our local designers have to take part-time jobs to make ends meet but, undaunted, they continue to make stunning, impeccable clothes and to make them right here in Aotearoa New Zealand.

 
The answer to Isaac’s question depends on what one means by “value”. But in our increasingly impersonalised industries and attention deficient consumerism, I think investing in locally-designed, locally-made fashion, and in the good folk involved in it is worth every penny. And with that, I think it’s time to buy a pair of MisteR’s Basket Jeans before they run out; they only made ten of them.