Personally I can’t understand the excitement of cut price ladies’ clothes range, ghost-designed and modelled by a truculent Croydon superstar whose wealth appears predicated on the ability to look OK and walk, and turn.
I’m even more confused by the thousands who’d queue overnight just to get their hands on this tat. However, it’s their preference, so I can’t complain, unlike the kind of opinion that I’ve been hearing and reading; it goes something like this:
Those people should be ashamed, paying money to an already rich retailer and supermodel. They would do better to give it to the poor of the world.
Or the alternative
What has Kate Moss ever done?
The first point belies a whole lotta confusion. Because most of the money is going to already wealthy people, then that can’t be good. But look, the clothes are probably made in Vietnam or India, so some wages must be flowing back there. If those people hadn’t queued to send money back to poor workers in Asia, then that mone would have found its way into the pockets of Blackpool hoteliers, Croydon barstaff or villa owners in Tuscany. Of course, the bulk of the money is going to Philip Green and Kate Moss but they have talents that can’t be easily replicated.
In fact, the size of the queues should have factory owners in Hyderabad rubbing their hands because it suggests a new trend, especially following Madonna’s foray into fashion with H&M. Other superstars may be tempted, resulting in more work. Now it is true that the returns to madonna and her ilk will increase much faster that those to the garmet-makers, because there’s a limited supply of superstars but presumably quite a lot of slack in the labour markets where these clothes are made. But is that widening inequality such a problem if it lifts more people out of poverty?
As to what Kate Moss has done? Well, amongst other things, she’s proven to be a hugely effective channel for diverting funds to Asia. There’s a great experiment that could;ve been done with the topshop queue. Let’s say that total revenue raised is £1m and let’s assume that £1000 goes back to the Indian workers (that’s 0.1%). Now, how much would’ve been raised if somebody had rattled a charity tin in the face of those eager consumers? Yet Miss Moss magically convinced people to do exactly that. And even better, the workers get the benefit of having a job, rather than receiving charity.
