[lbo-talk] school uniforms (was: Ehrenreich responds to BDL)

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Aug 26 15:38:50 PDT 2003


Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:


>There is a big difference! The Catholic school uniformity comes
>explicitly and unabashedly from above and as a result often instills the
>life-long disgust for authority in right-minded individuals. The
>corporate standards of fashion, by contrast, are imposed from above just
>as the Catholic school uniformity is - but they are cleverly disguised
>as "individual choice." As a result, people slavishly follow them
>without even knowing that they are being remotely controlled. Worse
>yet, they defend the corporate yoke as the epitome of "individual
>freedom," as it is often the case in the US.

I'll bet a lot of corporate managers and fashion designers wish it were this easy. Do you have any idea how much time and money they spend trying to figure out what teens (not to mention the rest of us) like? Have you ever heard about how marketers spy on urban teens to find out what they think is cool? If the world were as you say, retailers and manufacturers would never go bust, or even have a bad quarter, but they do all the time.

Doug



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