California-based clothing line Colossal pins its hope on getting some bear love.
Says co-founder David Friedman:
What we call “Sopranos wear” — the standard three vertical stripes. You know there’s a reason why that makes sense, because vertical stripes do tend to be a little slimming, but the problem is the style hasn’t changed since somebody figured that out forty years ago.
We wonder if they’ll be any lesbian crossover…
GranDiva
The thing media outlets like “A Bear’s Life” don’t really bring to the fore as much as they did initally (in my opinion) is that the Colossalo line is manufactured by American Apparel. Remember them? While it’s nice to now that I’ll have a little more to choose from when I’m heading out to hit the big boy stores, the whole exploitative nature of American Apparel’s business model (though granted, Colossal is only outsourcing production of its designs to AA) nags at my conscience a little.
sarah
Our ears were burning! Thanks for linking to the NPR story about Colossal and our marketing efforts. We’d love to offer your readers a discount — type QUEERTY at checkout for 10% off.
Meanwhile, GranDiva, I hear you re. AA’s advertising — their ads bother me even more now that I’m a mom. But Colossal loves AA’s commitment to fair employment practices and their downtown LA location, which is why we chose to use AA rather than manufacture overseas, and we hope that our own advertising (real men in our real clothes) shows our customers our own commitment to NON-exploitative marketing practices.
GranDiva
Well, sarah, okay, as long as I can go into the fitting room without the thought of Dov Charney himself being physically anywhere near clothing I’d wear…
I’ll grant that his management ethics are admirable, but he is quite challenged in so many other arenas as to be thoroughly discomfiting.
sarah
GranDiva — LOL — very true.