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.

It's all a load of pretentious wankspeak bollocks. 🤮

I don't see what's wrong with 'colourway' when it's used to describe a textile with multiple colours in it. For example, the same print could be done in yellow/orange/red, purple/turquoise/red & yellow/green/red. If you referred to them as a single colour, it would be confusing.

Using 'colourway' when it's a single colour is wrong, IMHO.

Yes, that’s the way I understand it.

Talking to our butchers a few years ago mutton went out of fashion because it was considered to be a poor mans food. Hogget similar, such a pity because it's such a tasty meat. So there's aspirational marketing for you

It was TV chefs that started pushing lamb as more tender and mutton etc fell out of fashion. It will come back in fashion but will be hand reared mutton, ewes imported from Nepal that lived out their long life in an English orchard.

On that I agree. Most sheep farmers here sell lambs from 6-9 months old. The market demands it.

@derxa I only live on a sheep farm. Lambs here are certainly fed a lot of nuts! I was just trying to clarify that the comment didn't refer to baby sheep being fed almonds. But are baby lambs fattened on cereals in Britain - I only know they are where I live. And no I didn't read the full thread but I assume it isn't all about names for sheep feed?

From Taiwan and arrived by shipping container.

It's consumerist, virtue signalling porn where the tripe on the label vosts £50.

Yes, I agree.

It is all very conflated. We have a local artists market, locally produced foods, and “independent” sellers but they are often just the lucky few who have enough capital to set up shop in London and “see how it goes”. It all seems to be half a dozen of one and six of another.

I'll tell you our regime. Lambs born March-April. Stay with mothers till August so milk and grass. Then weaned and live on grass till December when they get hayledge and grass. Some go for slaughter from September onwards. We might give some additional feed but not much. At six months old they are no longer 'baby' sheep.

I understand what you're saying completely OP and don't have a problem with you saying it, even if you are from a Barbour and guns family. You have as much right to be annoyed by it as anyone because this type of marketing is transparently just trying to get you to buy something and that's tiresome in itself. It wants you to feel better about buying it than something doesn't have the accompanying blurb.

But the bollocking pretentiousness of it! It's like glamping or darling little beach front cafes in Cornwall, Sainsbury's Taste The Difference, absolutely every last fucking thing you can buy in Marks & Sparks ("extremely chocolatey" "easier to iron boxers" and all the other guff) - pure manipulation and coercion. This is why I like Aldi and Lidl and absolutely never read the marketing blurbs on clothing websites.

@derxa is it farmers who try and get two lambings in one season that use lots of feed? I do know it is not the traditional way to do it though.

Made a by 10 year old in Bangladesh out of newly produced plastic that's ideal for strangling sea life when it falls apart after 2 washes - isn't going to justify toast prices. Although Nike do quite well out of it.

Handbags. The price of them these days, the advertising. Anyone seen the mulberry Christmas advert 😱

My mother used to do it - I'd heard the rhythm of the machine and casting off, etc, since before I was born, so the very first time I had a go, I made a jumper in an afternoon with next to no instruction.

That seventy quid hat would have involved;

Load washing machine and put machine on for standard wash.

Put kettle on and make tea.

Take tea to machine.

Use the rib spacer (or just knock the needles you don't need back, it's just rib)

Cast on.

Whizz, whizz, whizz.

Use your 3 stitch looper every 5 rows to create the decrease/shape (looks like dec 3 L & R)

Whizz, whizz, whizz, (whizz, whizz).

Repeat 7 times.

Cast off.

Drink still hot tea.

Make other 3 sections and if you are being paid to finish as well or you're making this for your kid with some leftovers, sit on the sofa with your next cuppa and your latch hook whilst you wait for the washing machine to finish its spin cycle.

By the way, that 'special' South African fleece that can't be called Merino gets mostly shipped to China, as it's their largest customer. So things Made in China are made with exactly the same raw material.

@mantyzer no that would be feeding the ewe not the lamb. It simply depends where you are farming whether it is realistic to fatten lamb outside midwinter. On hilly moorland covered in snow for a week as I am if you want to raise sheep for 6 or even 12m they will need a fair bit of extra feed. And sometimes bringing inside entirely. Some of my neighboura have all their animals inside now because it's been a grim Nov. Some are still outside. The ewes will be out in all the flattest fields to get as much fresh food as they can. But they won't have this year's lamb with them.

There's nothing wrong with supplemental feeding but it's expensive so farmers don't choose to do it. It's neither an everywhere practice or a nowhere practice - like everything it's guided by what's necessary.

@Bigcoatlady Thanks.

@NeverDropYourMooncup My best friend used to do it with young children at home. She wasn't talking lots of relaxing cups of tea because she needed to make as many as she could to get a half decent wage. What you describe is what someone would do for "pin money".

Well, five kids, a dead husband and limited widows' benefits in 1974 meant she needed some cash in hand, so she usually did knocked out a couple of jumpers in an evening, few more on Saturdays when there was TV to sit and watch all day, as she made more per item and didn't have to finish or block them that way. Paid more than machining or hand sewing giant teddy bears that probably went for a fortune as well.

The actual process of making the single hat being sold for seventy quid, though, is incredibly quick and simple. Quicker if you did multiple pieces and joined them up later, but the description of a cuppa still being hot is a fairly useful indicator of just how quickly one can be done.

Hand-knitted Irish Aran jumpers ought to have a “female slave labour” warning, too. In the 80s I know that so much skill, maybe 2 weeks, was paid £15/20 a jumper.

I don't know anyone who does this. It seems cruel to me

OP, whilst it’s very sweet of you to be so concerned about advertisers patronising the working classes, albeit from your privileged middle class eyrie, are you sure they need your ‘help’? I mean it’s not really helping them at all is it? Also, I tend to find that these sort of overblown, precious descriptions are often applied to the products of middle and upper class “makers” and they’ve written the guff themselves!

ha ha ha ha, brilliant @KissTheRains

If anyone says "that will look nice with an ankle boot" I will ask them what they only want to wear one of them.