Where You Shop Is A Political Act!

Where You Shop Is A Political Act!

Last week my brain was whirring around loads of things to write about here. First up, the most obvious. Christmas is coming, and that we now have very nearly everything online.

We’ve added some new things today. They’re here.

There are one or two additions to come soonish, but we have five departments oozing great British things.

We’d love you to consider buying from us this Christmas, and in so doing, supporting proper British craftspeople.

Next, I got pretty wound up about this.

Mr and Mrs Bezos bought the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Well, not quite, but last week they became the lead sponsor of its key soft power event, The Met Gala.

This is depressing and their actions are deeply insidious.  

Now, you might believe that The Met Ball is a vulgar, pointless, ugly, bourgeois party for vulgar, largely pointless and bourgeois people in generally ugly clothes. And you may think that the Gala devalues the Met, which is, in so many ways a museum of astonishing cultural and political (not to mention economic) importance.

You would be right on both counts.

But the Met Gala is an event of global cultural significance of almost unparalleled soft power, and it not only champions all sorts of cultural institutions, but is watched and pawed over by billions.

And so, the idea that the world’s third richest couple, who made their fortune by selling us everything and anything, often for the hell of it, generally thoughtlessly and often at a loss for everyone involved while exploiting everyone in its supply chain, is actually quite terrifying. In buying this event Mr and Mrs Bezos are devaluing it profoundly, and in so doing devaluing the Met, New York, The USA.

They are destroying creativity and originality, individuality and truth.

This remember, is the man who sent his fiancée into space on a rocket for her de facto hen night.

Bezos owns the Washington Post, which is probably the USA’s second most important newspaper and soon, I believe, he will have a stab at Condé Nast. And on and on.

Truly, this is an idiotic move by the esteemed museum and publishing house. You get what you deserve, and you deserve what you get, guys.

So, what can we do?

Think Positive.

First, a disclaimer. I am a hypocrite. I shop at Amazon. But only really for stuff made by corporations (cleaning stuff, Christmas lights etc). Most of my books come from Daunt and records from Rough Trade.

Is that okayish?

Whatever….

We can’t change anything on a global scale. Bezos has a zillion dollars, and he wants to rule the world, which he will do. We are in a new gilded age of power in which a smaller and smaller number of rich people control a larger and larger portion of global wealth. It’s happening and it’s getting worse.

But, if we think positively, we can make a difference by choosing where we shop this Christmas. If we buy from small businesses, we change things on a local or national scale. This is a cliché, and it does take a bit of effort, but it’s far more fun for us and rewarding for the people we buy from. You don’t have to buy everything from small businesses -restaurants, gift shops, makers, farmers; online and IRL- but everything that you do buy makes a profound, human difference.

Where you shop is a political act.

It makes a positive difference. It builds community, originality, hope and belief. Happiness. The government are not helping us in this regard, so get over the complaining, move on and make a difference yourself.

We had this banner sewn by Joe in Warwickshire. It’s made, of course, in the American vernacular, but it is British and I feel as if there’s something delightfully encouraging in that, in itself. I don’t quite know what I am articulating there, but I feel it and hope you will too.

What matters is the message.

More Where You Shop… merch is coming soon. Our daughter Kinvara has designed some brilliant things.

Over and out.

All best
Charlie