About a blouse and Donald Trump
With time to kill between running errands, I sauntered into Lord and Taylor and a gorgeous blouse caught my eye. In soft cotton with delicate embroidery, the black and white blouse seemed worthy of its price tag of $75. I wanted it. Then I saw the brand-name. Ivanka Trump.
And the conversation in my head went berserk.
Should I purchase the gorgeous blouse that belongs to the House of Donald Trump? Decades ago, Harvey Milk, the grand LGBTQ activist took the Coors boycott one step further - no gay bars in San Francisco's Castro district would sell Coors Beer, in protest of their anti-gay policies.
Why generate revenues for someone who is so clearly anti-you? Why should my hard-earned brown dollars make Trump even richer? I was not going to buy it.
I walked away from the blouse, but it pulled me back. What if I did buy it? At $75, it might still be a steal. If Trump becomes President, I can show off my blouse and casually mention that it is designed by the President's daughter. If he lost? Well that is some months away, and I will think up a story.
I checked the manufacturing origin of the Ivanka blouse. It was "Made in China". Surprise surprise, considering how Trump has been on an anti-Chinese rant. He wants to stop the outsourcing business and put high tariffs on Chinese imports. He is so outraged that Oreos are made in Mexico that he has sworn to never eat them again.
In a study of the Trump-branded merchandise advertised on trump.com, the Harvard Trade and Investment Professor Robert Lawrence came upon some interesting information. Lawrence found that "Of the 838 Ivanka products advertised through the site, none appear to be made exclusively in the US; 628 are said to be imported and 354 made specifically in China."
I rationalised with myself. Now is a good time to buy the Ivanka blouse because it might be exorbitant in the coming days. If Donald Trump becomes President, he will begin to fulfill the promises he has made to his followers.
"Make America Great Again" entails bringing jobs and manufacturing back to the US rightfully, Ivanka Trump will follow her father's directive and bring manufacturing back home.
I don't know the cost of manufacturing this blouse, but a study by the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights compared the cost of manufacturing a t-shirt in Bangladesh and the US.
A t-shirt costs $13.22 in the U.S. - with $0.75 in industrial laundry, $5 in materials and $7.47 in labour costs; the same t-shirt can be made in Bangladesh at $3.72 with $0.20 in industrial laundry, $3.30 in materials and $0.22 in labour costs. So if Ivanka does manufacture the blouse in the US, at a conservative estimate, the blouse might cost at least double, at $150. At that price point, the blouse would certainly not be attractive for me!
Like many US citizens, I like value-for-money clothing too. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average Americans spend less than four percent of their total income on wardrobes, about half of what was spent 50 years ago.
With the current state of the economy and stagnant wages, will they like to shell out a higher percentage of their earnings on apparel?
Besides, for all his political rhetoric, Trump's behaviour mirrors that of the companies he criticises so openly. Like them, he has been providing his customers with reasonably priced merchandise that does not stretch their dollars. So will Ivanka really want to price the blouse at $150?
Or maybe the Ivanka blouse will not cost more than $75 if it is "Made in America" in the future. Bringing manufacturing back to the US does not mean bringing back jobs like Trump promises.
Ivanka may use robots to manufacture the blouse. Like the ones from the Atlanta startup SoftWear Automaton Inc.
This company has attracted venture capital funding for their robots that can sew garments - from jeans to prom dresses - and can handle finer materials like silk as well. Instead of skilled labour, these machines need next to no labour at all; fewer people will be required on factory floors and those engaged in routine tasks with little expertise or education will be vulnerable.
Then again, Ivanka may go the "Italian" way, and charge higher than $75 for the said blouse. Many luxury companies have their goods "Made in Italy" by illegal Chinese laborers who are paid as little as two euros or three dollars per day.
The Tuscan town of Prato, where Gucci and Prada leather goods are manufactured has the second-largest population of Chinese in Europe (after Paris). More than half of the 4,200 Prato factories are owned by Chinese entrepreneurs.
So while "Made in Italy" is technically correct, it is not Geppetto creating those luxury goods. Will that happen in the US as well?
I put the Ivanka blouse back on the rack. Why was I overthinking this purchase? November is still far away, Trump is not President yet, and his actions are contrary to his political rantings anyways. Trump or no Trump, Made in America or China, robots or humans, brown greenbacks or white, my decision was made.
A blouse is a blouse. I will wait for Lord and Taylor to announce a sale. Then the blouse will be way cheaper than $75.
I will be back for it.