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So Anna Sui and Koi Suwannagate created shirts for Nordstrom to commemorate Asian Pacific American Heritage Month. The first one by Anna Sui has a blond, Caucasian girl printed on it (not exactly very Asian); the second one by Koi Suwanna gate has a feather on it and the last one (also by Anna Sui) has a pearl design. (If you click on the "Shop Now" link, you can get a better idea of the shirts' design.)
There's nothing that particularly screams Asian Pacific American about the shirts, in my opinion. (In fact, if I didn't know beforehand what they were meant for, I would never have associated them with APAHM, even if I knew who the designers were.) Plus,why the lack of Asian models? There's one in the promotional picture but the model wearing the shirts in the catalog is Caucasian. (And as noted in this Daily Kos diary, Koi Suwannagate has come under fire recently for not using any models of color during Fashion Week in New York.)
And good point brought up by allan in the comments - why is there nothing for Asian American guys?
At $60 a shirt, there're not exactly affordable to everyone. Still, a portion of the after-cost proceeds will benefit the OCA. What do you all think? Is this a good idea or kind of eh?
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| User | Points |
|---|---|
| curtis | 1928 |
| ebeh | 1161 |
| Madhuri | 1145 |
| erinjerri | 1074 |
| spamfriedrice | 551 |
| oliveoil | 457 |
| Calvin Prashad | 358 |
| JennyG | 281 |
| jenn | 219 |
| chriswong | 155 |
I'd rather buy apparel from sweatshop free, independent Asian American t-shirt designer and entrepreneur Ryan Suda, aka Blacklava.
http://blacklava.net/store/
one of my favorite shirts...
Blacklava rocks! :)
You have to got to be kidding me... That's pretty bad. We can't even have Asian month with Asian people in it. Or even an Asian guy.
While there doesn't appear to be anything "Asian" about the shirt, as long as they are selling and the profits are going to the right organizations i guess it doesnt matter who's wearing the shirt or whats on it.
It's kinda like the (RED) campaign when you think about it...but the lack of Asian models cannot be helpful to isssues that many Asian-American women have with body image.
I know you're trying to rationalize this, Calvin, but it's even more ironic that you would use the RED campaign to use it. The RED campaign is about the truly invisible other, the hungry Third World poor (usually targed at sub-Saharan African populations) who are really in desperate need of aid. This month was supposed to help raise the profile of Asian Americans but this ad defeats the purpose. Then again, who the hell shops at Nordstrom any more?
That does make sense, I don't even know what Nordstrom is.
Nordstrom - it's a high end retail department store whose customers are mostly older, upper-income white women. It's like Neiman Marcus (or as some call it, Needless Markup), only less pricey.
Just to play devil's advocate here, not everything has to scream and be explicitly "asian" to contribute to the notion of celebrating "Asian Pacific American Heritage Month." When two celebrated Asian designers are participating and proceeds are going to benefit an Asian American organization, this seems rather trite to call out and over-analyze.
It's more likely that Sui or Suwannagate were asked if they would contribute to what sounds more like a marketing campaign and they shared designs that were ready to be released into market. Using a white model was likely a marketing decision to broaden appeal to (a larger demographic) white women. If you think this is wack, then vote with your wallet and support the homie Ryan Suda and blacklava.net
There are greater issues to be worked on.
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