has been taken. I felt like a kind of lame-o signing up on-line but thought that once my name was up on the list I might actually set about crotcheting that blanket (hahaha! As if it will ever be finished this side of 2010!) out of fear of going back on my word.
On a more serious and, oh yes, ruminative note, my recent “exploits” into the world of domesticity have been a very eye-opening experience. When I take into account the hours needed in front of a sewing machine or wielding knitting needles, plus the cost of the materials themselves, I cannot possibly square the value of an item of clothing with the price I pay for it at the large shopping chains. And that’s without even factoring in the cost of shipping it all by air from China or Indonesia or wherever it is made.
Cheap labour markets and bulk purchasing power are all well and good for those on a budget, but they do seem to have caused us to, on some level, fundamentally lose touch with the value of the objects. It’s as if the price, rather than the object itself, has become the commodity, and the cheaper the better.
I’m no Marxian, not by a long-shot, but I can’t help but begin to think that if I spend three hours making a scarf, something of that effort should be reflected in the price that you pay for it. It’s a sad fact that until very recently, when I saw a hand-made piece of clothing retailing for double, or more than double, the price of a mass-produced machine-made piece, I would be outraged, not at the systematic undervaluing of labour by the multinational enterprises behind the latter, but the audacity of the former in demanding such a high-price for their work.
It’s time for me to take a step-back from the relentless commercialism, especially surrounding this season, which equates more faster cheaper with better and, more worryingly, better value.
When I first came to Japan one of the things that struck me most was the huge amount of independent local retailers on the high street, as opposed to back home (the UK) where there are, essentially, none. And yet, even here, I cannot begin to imagine how difficult it must be for them to make ends meet against the market power of bigger brands.
I don’t want the world to be run by GAP and Yahoo!Japan and Walmart. I don’t want my buying choices to be restricted to those things which they deem cost-effective. I don’t want traditional techniques to die out, and I do want the option of buying hand-made, local gifts in the future. Which, when you throw the merciless savagery of capitalism into the mix, essentially means buying them now to preserve their profit margins so that they can continue to function in the future.
So. This Christmas I will be knitting and crocheting my way through a selection of gifts, keeping the local yarn shop afloat as I do so, and everything else will be bought from local craft-making shops.
As an added bonus this will severely dimnish my gift-buying abilities, forcing me to really think about who I give to this year and why, rather than just giving away willy-nilly because it’s nice to have the money to spend.
Phew! End of entry!
