Trousers - Genlemen take Polaroids (coloured by me)
Today I woke up to maybe the best day of summer so far.
Which sucked since I had to work today.
Yes, I'm still on vacation, but I had promised to do a shift at "the-cothing-store-I'm-employed-at-but-never-work-in-but-still-have-my-discount-at"; the first shift since one in February, the time before that being someting like November 2007. (I'm not sure if the discount is worth it, goddamit I don't even shop there that much anymore!)
Well, I'm there and one hour before the other guy who will finish the day is due to come to work he calls me in the shop and tells me he's ill and won't show up. Seriously, fuck. I really wanted to go home and cathc some beauty sleep bvefore hitting the town big tie tonight. Thank god some of the sweet guys from another of these stores (there are three within five minutes from each other) came and stayed for a while so I could have lunch, and another guy other came to close so I didn't have to stay the whole evening. You gotta love those guys.
About the store... I kind of hate it in a way. They have their own designers and own brands. As an employee you can send in suggestions for designs, and if it is put up fpr production you get 1000 euros. Not much if you've actually designed something, but if you're a regular guy behind the counter and have a cool idea for say, a t-shirt, then one grand and your shirt in the store is quite nice. So, two years ago I drew up a whole collection of mine and my friend's (who was also my storemanager's at the time) ideas. Very what-we-know-they-would-sell and some of what we wanted for ourselves. The responce was that it was "really good, but a bit too much for them to dig in to".
Ummmm, what?
Someone gets a grand for saying "you should make a yellow tee with red stripes" and we had tons of ideas but it's too much for them to look at? Ok, fine, if they wouldn't have wanted those designs at all. But during the year after some similar things showed up in the store, like small details resembling, or the same model but different patterns or colours... Hmm, ok, might be a coincidence and I'm a trend oracle in that case, but this shirt really pised me off:
My drawing of a men's shirt in August 2006:
Sneaky pics of shirt in production fall/winter 2007:
Rrrrip-off!
Sure, I had ska-inspired checks and this shirt dogtooth, but they had never had shirt lined with checks before! And I had put the checked lining under the collar (and on it in another version), they had it inside. But the lining of the buttons and the cuffs are just like I drew them, goddamit, it's the same f***ing shirt!
Sure, fashion industry is a lot about copying or riping off, you know, what you see on the catwalks of the big fashion houses you'll see similar versions of in Zara etc. the season after. That's ok, it's the way it goes and it's a bit different when huge corporations do it as part of a system than when a company rips it's employers of.
So, I'm going to keep on being employed and shop cheaper and then maybe honour the shop with my presence behind the counter a couple of times a year.
I'll be there tomorrow too, all hungover and miserable, matching my eyes with the colour of my top, playing rautalanka-music. So don't come there. Well, unless you'll bring me an ice cream or something.
(hear hear, employee of the year speaking! :)
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