Peak middle class marketing

[kindlypudding]

I am in this demographic, but it fucking irritates me.
I suppose it could be called consumer class appropriation, how so many goods are aimed at the MC with taglines including factory workers, craftsmen, etc.

I look at a woolly hat, typical shop that I like and have purchased from, and there's a foot long description about the wool process. OK, we are the main target for ethical, climate related messaging, but it's beginning to feel cheap, worn out and fucking patronising.

Here's one from Navy&Grey -
"The wool arrives in Scotland by boat where it is spun and dyed on the banks of Loch Leven in Kinross by Todd & Duncan, one of the finest Scottish Mills which has been spinning yarn for 150+ years.
85% of the dyes used by Todd & Duncan are organic and the water used for washing and dyeing the wool is cleaned and purified before returning to Loch Leven to be used again".

And here's another from Toast -
"Established in 2009, Bleu de Chauffe, the name taken from French workwear jackets worn by 19th century factory workers..."

You could almost say it is a fetishisation of the working class, or at least pre war. It supposes I am thick headed, desperate to show my privileged, ethical plumes. I chose the bag quoted above because I love it, it has served me well and the softness of the strap reminds me of my old horse's reins long ago. This squarely places me within the target market, and whilst a lot of these products are beautiful, the cloying, oozingly false pretensions about the environment leave me cynical.
It's like when you read a Guardian article about capitalism and clothes, and all the commenters claim to only ever buy second hand and patch up their own repairs. This is great, but along come san actual poor person who has been doing that anyway for years. It feels like just another road to excessive consumption, but with a more insidious intent.

Toast has been ridiculous for years.

And this from the article I read earlier -

"I'm not much interested in fashion but I am interested in saving money and avoiding waste hence I read the article . In our nearby small town in France there is a wonderful seamstress working out of a tiny shop"

It supposes, whilst posturing significantly, that someone works hard so that you can have it cheap, and this is helping the planet! Oh do fuck off. The 'tiny' shop just makes it ever so sweet, doesn't it?
Saving money whilst others reduce their value.

How many "colourways" does it come in OP? 😁

That's the kind of wanky marketing I hate. It's not a "colourway", it's just a fecking colour. It's not a "pant", they're trousers.

What really bothers me is the ever so quaint way in which they fetishise poverty. it is like cosplaying at being poor. Just awful.

I come from a Barbour and guns family, and have no idea where my fucking anger at this comes from. Surely anyone with a bloody brain can feel the sleaze? It reminds me of grooming (not horses, but vulnerable people), to convince them that poor people live in a strange, bucolic utopia.

And it's not "a trouser" either!

I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. Yes there’s a lot of marketing drivel but I don’t see it as fetishizing poverty. I do notice, OP, that you seem awfully keen to keep repeating how middle class you believe yourself to be.

Yes, I created a fictitious post to tell strangers on the web that I am from a certain cultural group. Incidentally, one that most of MN claim to be.

Or "a lip"!

That gives me the rage. "She sported a red lip". You mean she had red lipstick on.

"The wool arrives in Scotland by boat..."

Where from? What's wrong with Scottish sheep? 😂

<misses point of thread>

I don't think you're meant to pick it apart, just go with the flow of the prose

Nostalgie de la boue, innit

I agree OP. Another thing that really, really irritates me is the assumption that 'factory' means 'production line staffed by morons', when actually it just means a place where items are manufactured, often by very skilled workers.

But I guess it just sounds better to present the povvo workers artisans as doing so in some sort of bucolic picturesque cottage industry place.

Patronising is the right word.

I initially imagined they meant it came from one of the Scottish islands, but, come to think of it, it would not be “arriving in Scotland” then, would it?
Maybe it comes across the Channel in a Small Boat.

Its all wankspeak, though. Look, buy these bracken and lichen died tweed plus-fours to protect the planet! Rather than, stick with what you already have.

Ah, website tells me the sheep are Saffers.

“Our superfine wool arrives in Scotland by boat once a year, sourced from a special breed of sheep in South Africa.”

”special breed” ha ha. Special in what way?

I love to criticise advertising as much as the next person but I don’t really see this as fetishising poverty - to me it reads more that their target market are people who like to know that the goods are made by hand, with care, like to know the provenance of the material rather than believing that they’re just buying one of a number of identical articles from a production line.

Yes, it's a glorification of an imagined working class, tenderised and packaged up for MC consumption. I suppose my issue isn't about differences between these groups, but more the consumerisation of them. I don't even know it that's a word

Wankspeak, yes!

Why is wool arriving by boat in Scotland? we've plenty wool
🤣🤣

But which bit is the fetishisation of the working class part? The first paragraph isn’t - surely working class would be “it was churned out in a factory in China by people working 16 hours days and probably going blind at the same time”
It is wanky but I guess so much is mass produced that the advertisers were given the brief “make it sound like we care about every jumper”

Want to add that I don't refer to contemporary working class, since many are very well off financially (far more than me). I only refer to the idealised, historical version of the term.
I am a bit of a William Morris fangirl, so feel slightly conflicted.

Note to Mumsnet: Why can I not copy any paste from within my own message?

i can only do it on chrome right now.

The rabid cynic in me can't do that😎

William Morris isn’t old timey working class though. Are you conflicted because you like old fashioned middle class things but don’t want to be marketed to in that way because it feels annoying to be able to be pigeon holed in that way?

I don’t think fetishising poverty or the working classes so much as fetishising the middle class shopper experience, even greenwashing.

All of these companies trying to convince the consumer that the product and brand is worthy. That the consumer is a different type of shopper than someone doing hauls in Primark or Zara. All of these shoppers still mindlessly over-consuming but convinced they are better because it is a more exclusive product.