SOAPBOX - ‘Just sell clothes, not politics’

Concrete Junglists has never been scared to stand on its soapbox. I get told all the time that I would be earning good money if I just kept my mouth shut, but what would I be running. The brands I used to admire, I’ve watched them grow and be sold and grow again. But as those brands get further from their source the voice diminishes and their sense of being something to wear, falls from the shoulders of the original tribe and onto the capitalist clothes horses.

Take someone like North Face, you are literally guaranteed to see kids in the rave wearing a North Face tee, most of them would take escalators over climbing a mountain. They have no connection to the brand and the brand has little connection to its original tribe of mountaineers. It is owned by the VF Corporation who have done exactly the same to the other brands under its umbrella; Vans (used to stand for counter culture & skateboarding), Supreme (used to be the monoliths of streetwear and skateboarding), Napapijri (same as North face), Eastpack, Timberland, Dickies, Wrangler, Reef. All have had their time in the sun for their respective tribes they represented, all have or will follow the same suit as they dilute, conform, compromise and assimilate into blandness. Bape the streetwear colossus is owned but he same people who own Campus and French Connection. Shawn Stussy sold his share of Stüssy to his business partners the Sinatra Family. This movement from the core to commodity means that voices are lost and the soapboxes shoved back under the stairs. *One notable exception to the rule is Yvon Chouinard who started the brand Patagonia (Welsh connections). He transferred ownership of Patagonia to the Patagonia Purpose Trust so that the profits would be used to address climate change and to protect land. Legend.

As a brand owner who literally designs clothes on the same kitchen table he has since the brand started, irks a little. I keep reminding myself that I’m a marathon runner not a sprinter. I keep telling myself that it really matters that I address the wrongs in the world, even though the boa constrictor called algorithm strangles the life out of any artwork.  The trolls and keyboard warriors, bite and sting the carcass the constrictor leaves behind. You can see why the artists and brands leave the soapbox behind and bow to the people saying ‘Just sell clothes, not politics’. But again to make art, is to bare your soul and and to censor that truth would just be for capitalism and to regurgitate bland ideas. Sometimes the contrast between starving artist and capitalist puppet is painfully real.