'Tis the season when the catalogues start rolling in. And I get a ton of catalogues rolling in, both from companies that I regularly purchase from (L.L. Bean) to those I've never bought a thing from (Hammacher-Schlemmer).
Years ago, I wrote to dozens of catalogues asking to be taken off their mailing list. I still get an awful lot, but the catalogue tsunami did abate somewhat. (For all I know - and I would have absolutely no reason to know for most of them - most of the ones who stopped sending catalogues are out of business.)
My latest haul (received over the last week) includes Garnet Hill, Hammacher-Schlemmer, Jockey, Maryland Square, L.L. Bean, Land's End, Artful Home, Soft Surroundings, and the Vermont Country Store. Oh, yes, and the Peruvian Connection.
I really like beautiful and interesting sweaters, and Peruvian Connection carries a lot of beautiful and interesting sweaters. And once in a while, I put away whatever misgivings I may have about some poor woman in Peru making seventeen cents and hour to knit one up, and buy one.
They're expensive.
But when I have a beautiful and interesting sweater, I hang on to it. Forever.
I still have the first Peruvian Connection sweater I bought in 1989. I can't remember what I paid. A lot. But, hey, I'm still wearing it, patched elbows and frayed button holes and all. And when I put it on, it brings back wonderful memories of the trip my husband and I took to Berlin over New Year's 1989-1990 to celebrate the Fall of the Wall. That sweater, black with a multi-colored vertical striped pattern, was my wardrobe mainstay for the entire trip. I wore it pretty much every day with a different colored turtle neck.
So what if I paid a lot? Amortized over 41 years, it was nothing.
It's been a couple of years since I bought a Peruvian Collection sweater, so I'm due. And if there was anything in the right color - blues, purples, pinks - I might be interested. So I thumbed through the latest catalogue.
What struck me was not the absence of sweaters in any colors I wanted. But the absence of color among the models.
The cover featured a stunning red head, freckles and all. And she appeared up until page 10, when things switched over to a stunning blonde. (Blondes, amazingly, seem to continue to represent the beau idéal of beauty, definitely punching above their skimpy weight in terms of working as catalogue models.)
I'm not sure whether it was the same blonde, but blondes held the fort until page 24, when red returned. Back to blondes on page 30. Back to red, page 50.
On page 54, I spotted my first brunette. But on closer examination, she actually had auburn hair, and she had to share her two-page spread with blondie, who maintained control until red grabbed the back cover.
Seriously, I don't believe you have to make sure that catalogue models appear in exact proportion to the numbers they hold in society. If there are a hundred photos, thirteen of them don't need to be Black.
But we are an increasingly diverse country, so the absence of people of color, of people who appeared Asian, or Mid-Eastern, or even of Italian or Greek origin, seems weird. And what are we to make of a catalogue called Peruvian Connection that doesn't feature any Hispanic or indigenous peoples models? Is it deliberate? Have they done the market research that shows that their audience is entirely made up of blondes and red-heads, who need to see beautiful versions of themselves in order to buy something? Or was it an aesthetic choice? Maybe next time the catalogue could use only Black models as a purely aesthetic choice.
All I can say is that L.L. Bean has non-white models. Say, is that Mt. Katahdin that gorgeous young African-American couple is climbing? The cartoon characters on Land's End's cover are mixed race, and the first human you see is an adorable young Black woman modeling a turtleneck. Land's End even shows folks with grey hair. (Include me in!)
Artful Home - source of the one funky, artsy item of clothing I buy each year, and an occasional gift - is a glorious mix of races and ages. Garnet Hill is, too. And I've got my eye on that gorgeous cardigan modeled by a gorgeous brown-eyed, dark haired woman who might be Hispanic. Or Mid-Eastern. Or Italian. Or Greek. All I know is, she's not a blonde.
Hammacher-Schlemmer. Jockey. Soft Surroundings. Their models represent! Especially Soft Surroundings. I didn't do a nose count, but their models appear to be majority-minority. I've never ordered from them, but their clothing sure looks ultra-comfy. "Effortless style." Who cares about style, as long as it's effortless!
Maryland Square is a shoe catalogue, so it's hard to tell, as their catalogue just shows shod feet.
But even the Vermont Country Store catalogue has plenty of models with dark hair, and a handful of dark faces. And if there's any catalogue that gives off more of a "white people like" vibe than the Vermont Country Store, I don't know what it would be. (Seriously, muu-muus?)
The United States is on it's way to becoming a "majority minority" country, in which those of us of white European origin no longer make up more than half our population. You'd think that retailers would want to appeal to as broad an audience as possible, other than the ones who specialize in Ku Klux Klan apparel, Nazi paraphernalia or other niche markets (one-armed paper hangers). It helps everyone to see themselves represented, i.e., wanted as a customer.
And it helps us all to see that there's plenty of everyone else out there.
After all, everyone else: They're just like us!
Blacks, Asians, South Asians, Native Americans, Hispanics - they wear flannel PJs! They buy toys for their kids! They buy goofy electronics!
Maybe they even like muu-muus!
But maybe what they don't like is expensive, interesting sweaters from the Peruvian Connection.
To tell you the truth, I really hadn't noticed that Catalogue America, for the most part, represents our diversity fairly well if the absence of color, Peruvian Connection style, sent me looking.
Let's just say that absence of color struck me as odd.
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