So it was Christmas Day earlier today, and like any good American consumer, I faithfully opened up Safari tabs for Toms, Cotton Bureau, and Patagonia during a moment of boredom post-present opening.
I love all three of the three aforementioned brands. Toms’ charity has been well documented. Cotton Bureau has been empowering both small time and big time designers to make a few bucks on the side without the hassle of dealing with traditional apparel company shenanigans. Patagonia has to be the leading American consumer apparel company striving for better awareness and accountability when it comes to materials and sources.
Upon opening all three websites, I noticed something about the Cotton Bureau one that induced some warm-fuzzy feelings:
Isn’t that special? They straight up took a week off for the holidays. At my last job, the idea of taking a week off in general was heresy. I had to plead with them to get two measly weeks off for the whole year! Of course, like most corporations, they weren’t alone. Why would any successful company deliberately turn away potential revenue? It makes zero sense business-wise. I get that.
But that’s the point.
Whether or not Christmas is a religious occasion anymore is debatable, sure. But there is no denying that it is a historically important time of the year in which businesses were closed so that the employees of said businesses could enjoy the holidays with their families. That was special.
Obviously, that was then, and this is now. Every year it seems more and more places are open for business on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and/or New Years.
After all my hyperbole, you can, therefore, imagine my delight upon navigating to Cotton Bureau’s website.
This was Patagonia’s website when I navigated there today:
I recall a pleasant phone conversation with a sales representative for Patagonia some weeks ago. I called to inquire as to the differences between several of their jackets. After that business was concluded, I had a moment. One of those out of body moments when, as I am speaking, I step outside of myself and grimace at the sound of the words emanating from my mouth. Almost immediately after I said these words, I wished I could have taken them back, for I was quite ashamed. I asked, in so many words, “Do you guys have any Cyber Monday sales going on?” The nice salesperson replied rather warmly, “Well, no. We actually choose not to participate in things like that.”
Wow. How refreshing.
And how about Toms?
Apparently Toms was in the same boat as Patagonia this holiday season. And there really isn’t anything wrong with that. I include their splash page merely for reference.
So let’s fast forward to Christmas 2015: I will be sitting in a comfy chair somewhere typing away on a Late (or Early) 2015 MacBook Air Retina Boomshakalaka (yay), sharing another story about shops being closed for the holidays.
Maybe for that story it will be 2/3 instead of 1/3 ?
❄️