From: "R.Pearson" <R.Pearson-AT-art.derby.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 13:26:25 +0100
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Value and Women's Unpaid Work


 Rob writes:

"I'm thinking about
symbolism.  If I want a T-shirt, I can get one for $5.00.  I'm alone at the
generic T-shirt basket, because everybody else is at the adjacent basket,
where identical T-Shirts with a brand name across the tits is going for
$25.00.  In a Veblenian (is that a word?) sense, the brand-name constitutes
a use-value (sign for brand and its advertising-produced associations as an
implicit association with the owner of the emblazoned tits)."

Many moons ago I used to sell T-Shirts to the liberal left and trendy fashion
stores. We'd buy in the garments at 1.50 pounds and knock them out for about
3.00 pounds to CND and to slimebags such as the Communist Party of Great
Britain's, Euro-com rag _Marxism Today_ . MT would then sell them on to their
punters for round about 9 quid. Incidentally, we only eventually got paid
when we threatened the mag with legal action.
More interestingly, we'd buy in XXXL T-Shirts for 1.87 pounds. We'd sell
these at 5.87 pounds to trendy shops like Paul Smith and Jones. They would
double them, add vat and sell em on for 15.00 pounds or more.

The labour entailed involved drawing up a design, turning it into a screen
ready form, making silk screens and then applying the ink to the garments.
Sounds like easy money? Nope, I was broke as monkey all the time and still
am... =;-(

Best Wishes,


Russell Pearson.





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