Bad sunglass branding and t-shirt design

Wp-Content Uploads 2012 04 Wp-Content Uploads 2012 04 J Msnbc Components Photo New Biz-120424-Hellenkeller.Photoblog500
Chinese company Xiamen Jinzhi has released a line of "Hellen Keller" sunglasses. According to the Wall Street Journal, company spokesman Xiamen Jinzhi said "that they were aware Helen Keller was blind, but what they valued was her philanthropist spirit which spread optimism around the world."

In other fun fashion news, Urban Outfitters is under fire from the Anti-Defamation League for selling a t-shirt with a patch the ADL says is similar to the "yellow badge" that Jews were ordered to sew on their clothing in Nazi Germany-occupied areas during World War II. The Daily quotes an open letter ADL regional director Barry Morrison wrote to Urban Outfitters CEO Richard Hayne: “The League has communicated with Urban Outfitters on numerous occasions over the years regarding a variety of projects that have, ‘tread on the feelings and reinforced stereotypes of various groups — Christians, blacks, and Irish, Mexican, and Jewish-Americans … the list goes on’ .” Of course, last month the Navajo Nation sued Urban Outfitters for using their name on panties and a flask (!). This was just before the Congressional Ad Hoc Committee on Irish Affairs asked Urban Outfitters to stop selling items like their "Irish Yoga" hat, emblazoned with a graphic of a man on his knees vomiting.

(via Next Draft)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

M Carlson

Yet another reason to not shop at Urban Outfitters. I guess some like their ironic clothing without having social responsibility.
dculberson

“Irish Yoga” hat, emblazoned with a graphic of a man on his knees vomiting.

I felt bad, but I lol’ed.
http://twitter.com/sparrowlab Katie Scully

Interesting. It looks like UO is still selling the shirt, but they Photoshopped the patch off (you can see where it was clone stamped).

http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/catalog/productdetail.jsp?id=24268690
- http://www.andresberrondo.com Andres Berrondo
  
  Why does the shirt cost 100 bucks?! What a bunch of Nazis! Pun intended.
- louisleblanc
  
  Here’s what I get.
  
  Due to the Charter of the French Language, we are unable to offer our website to the province of Quebec, at this time. Urban Outfitters continues to improve on its availability globally, and we will be investigating the addition of a bilingual site to accommodate our French-speaking customers.
  We value your continued support as a customer and apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Alternatively, please come visit us!
  
  Now that I think of it, I have been getting that for over a year (another time BB posted about them I tried to check out their site). You might want to add that to their dubious moral and ethics.
http://www.creaturesoflight.com dagfooyo

Next they plan to introduce a matching Helen Keller line of headphones.
- PinkWithIndignation
  
  Fashionable earplugs might be a more appropriate choice for the line.
NoOneSpecific

Wow! Get a sense of humor people! Man, I miss the 70′s when this stuff was actually FUNNY!

Irish yoga? Brilliant!

Don’t like that imagery? Try having fewer bars per capita! Or, as the Irish comedian Danny Boy put it, if there was a “World Cup of Drinking”, we’d be Spain!

=P
- Daneel
  
  Danny Bhoy? Scottish.
  
  http://youtu.be/VSMQ0sdB-Hs
  - http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt
    
    Thankyouthankyouthankyou!!!!! [Anything to get the taste of balls out o' my mouth!]
bigdig

The story’s a little more interesting — Helen Keller’s life apparently is standard ~~elementary-school~~ junior-high fare in China. James Fallows face-palmed here and published a reader rebuttal here.
http://bradhicks.livejournal.com/ J. Brad Hicks

Saw the headline yesterday, didn’t read the article, but now that you point out that they did it to honor her commitment to pacifism and socialism instead of as an ironic comment on her blindness, I’m just okay with the Helen Keller sunglasses.

One of the more entertaining passages in Loewen’s “Lies My Teacher Told Me” is the section where they point out that lots of American high school history books include a section on Helen Keller’s heroic childhood struggle with blindness, and none of them say even word one about her more remarkable adulthood as a world-traveling champion of the rural poor. You see, as someone who took the issue of childhood blindness rather personally, when she found out that the leading cause of childhood blindness around the world was poverty-related and easily preventable, she took that as a blistering indictment of capitalism — and wasn’t afraid to say so to anyone, no matter how angry it made the Red-baiters.

So I can see why your average American thinks that Helen Keller branded sunglasses are insulting or worse; it’s because American history textbooks have kept the average American as dumb as (expletive deleted).
- EH
  
  Well said!
- hymenopterid
  
  That is not possible because the average American does not read the textbooks. He just cheats off of the kids that do.
- Ipo
  
  Yes.
  But the average American probably has vague memories of Helen Keller’s story .
  How she wrote a diary, hiding from the Nazis in Amsterdam.
Marc45

I think it’s kind of cool. Why is this considered “bad”?
You may not like the sunglass design but what’s not to like about the idea?
- Brainspore
  
  You may not like the sunglass design but what’s not to like about the idea?
  
  “I’m gonna market a bunch of overpriced designer eyewear by exploiting the good name of one of the 20th century’s most inspiring and motivational public figures, who happened to be a blind socialist.”
  
  “Good idea!”
  - Marc45
    
    Thank you!
    
    BTW, the difference between political correctness and censorship is…nothing.
dolo54

Indian Yoga:
http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee148/biker_garfield/Unknown.jpg

Irish Yoga:
http://static.flickr.com/134/375385283_1a9b80c897.jpg

I’m half Irish and I think it’s funny, people are so sensitive these days…
- Navin_Johnson
  
  “I’m half Irish”
  
  That’s almost as good as “I’ve got a ____ friend”.
  - http://vertigo25.tumblr.com/ vertigo25
    
    From Navin Johnson… who I would love if he was the color of a baboon’s ass.
http://evilbobdayjob.blogspot.com/ Deidzoeb

That t-shirt patch looks more like a rejected design for the Klingon Empire logo.
http://twitter.com/Mach_a_Go_Go MachaGoGo

The patch on the Urban Outfitters looks nothing like the yellow badge btw.

http://kosherdelight.com/Holocaust_Yellow_Badge.jpg
http://abcnews.go.com/images/US/ht_urban_outfitter_star_tshirt_jt_120422_wblog.jpg

Make that shirt green and no one would even have made the association.
- Brainspore
  
  Ironically, if one affixed that badge to the pocket of that shirt it would make both stars much less noticeable.
- corydodt
  
  Exactly. It looks more like a sherriff’s badge to me.
  
  http://www.thelastbestwest.com/graphics/2004/Badges/Sheriffs/sheriff_mccallJPG.JPG
  - Antinous / Moderator
    
    I’d go with a hyperspatial recycling symbol.
- http://vertigo25.tumblr.com/ vertigo25
  
  Yeah. I am loathe to defend UO over anything, but in this one the ADL is overreaching. Which, really, quite often seems to be their wont.
http://www.matthewpetty.com/ Matthew Petty

See also
http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/hayne.asp
CEO of Urban Outfitters (plus Anthropologie and Free People) donated money to the Santorum campaign.
- http://twitter.com/beep54orama B E Pratt
  
  Why are we not surprised….
http://twitter.com/kinnon87 Calum kinnon

Urban Outfitters share an alley with my work, the other night a staff member spotted them disposing of old stock.
We raided the bin and found bags and bags of purposely destroyed clothes, handbags, coffee mugs, shoes, much of the jewellery, watches and other tat were in perfect condition, making room for the new season. These were not faulty products, just excess/old stock.
- http://www.facebook.com/thomashiles Tom Hiles
  
  Strangely, in the UK, or in Manchester at least , you can pick up their old stock from at least one local charity shop.
  - http://twitter.com/kinnon87 Calum kinnon
    
    I guess this may be down to individual managers, some more ethical than others
- penguinchris
  
  This is apparently common practice and you can’t single out UO for condemnation over it. More on that later though.
  
  There’s an interesting dynamic at UO with the clothes. They actually carry really nice stuff you can’t get anywhere else but online, but of course they also have a lot of kind of random ridiculous stuff which is what gets the attention. Their strategy is clearly to just stock anything and everything and to see what sticks (besides having a rotating core selection of good-quality stuff always available).
  
  The thing is though that because of this strategy, the clearance racks at every UO store are always overflowing and the discounts can be massive. It’s not just the weird stuff nobody wants in the clearance racks – it’s the good stuff too, because new things are cycled through the stores so quickly.
  
  It’s great for people who like the clothes, but what it also means is that they inevitably have large quantities of stuff that they can’t sell, at any price. Typically the good stuff gets bought once it’s in clearance, and the weird stuff doesn’t.
  
  And what exactly are they going to do with the weird stuff other than toss it? Charity shops don’t want it because it won’t sell there either. Homeless people don’t want it because it’s weird.
  
  Does that justify destroying it before tossing it? No, but… the only people who would be interested in the stuff once it’s tossed are people who shop at UO (and other stores that do the same thing) in the first place. So they’re preventing their own customers from getting free stuff, even if it’s stuff they couldn’t sell no matter how discounted.
  
  It speaks to many problems with over-consumption and fashion fads, of course, which UO typically doesn’t do anything to prevent.
  - http://twitter.com/kinnon87 Calum kinnon
    
    I understand all that you’re saying, and while UO are not the only culprits of this, I guess inevitable waste, it is something that many people are completely unaware of
    
    While there certainly was a lot of this weird stuff in the bags, a large majority of it included leather satchels, boots, woollen cardigans, t-shirts and hats that really couldn’t be described as fitting any particular fashion, the sort of clothing that was not distinctly UO.
    
    Passing this on to charity could hardly take away from their customer base, as their high pricing draws a certain market
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=520184505 Andrea Dickson

I’m not a fan of UO by any stretch of the imagination, but I can’t actually see what they would gain from making a ”Haha, this is my occupied-by-Nazis-Jew-shirt!” anyway. Some people are willing to look for offense in anything. Six-pointed stars are used outside of Jewish contexts (not uncommon in Hindu temples, for instance).
- Antinous / Moderator
  
  Ananda Marga scores with a Star of David, Rising Sun and Swastika.
  - Mister44
    
    That’s a cool design. I love non-Nazi swastikas. My find is an old screw driver my grandpa had with swastikas on it. It is the logo of a tool company that went out of business before there was such a thing as Nazis.
- Ipo
  
  There are two yellow six pointed stars in my family’s coat of arms, for over 500 years.
Hal

I’m 100% Irish and if people want to comment on or make fun of the widespread Irish habit of drinking till one pukes I’m not going to take offense.
I’m more upset by those who get offended when someone orders a “black and tan”
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1006412976 Caolán Ó Broin
  
  yeah, my fave drink is a 9/11, whats the big issue?
allenmcbride

It doesn’t seem like Helen Keller was into sunglasses, but there’s nothing about being blind that would prevent someone from being into fashionable sunglasses. In fact, aren’t sunglasses and blindness closely associated in the popular imagination, almost as much so as the white cane?
http://www.facebook.com/eryq.ouithaqueue Eryq Ouithaqueue

If you zoom in, the design is clearly three “golden rectangles” intersecting at right angles (golden rectangles are ones where the sides obey the golden ratio of approximately 1:1.618+). It’s a common shape in geometry, because the 12 vertices (4 corners * 3 rectangles) define the vertices of a regular icosahedron, one of the 5 Platonic solids.

This shows how the vertices work: http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMAT6680/Parveen/golden19.gif

A full article: http://jwilson.coe.uga.edu/EMAT6680/Parveen/platonic_solids.htm

It might also explain the golden color of the shirt.
pjcamp

Seems like if it is going to be “similar” to the yellow badge, it has to be, you know, at least kind of yellow.
- http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=520184505 Andrea Dickson
  
  But the shirt is yellow! CAN’T YOU SEE THE CONSPEERACEE???!
zartan

Sorry, their site is busted. lol. http://www.urbanoutfitters.com/urban/images/splash_page.gif
Mister44

Eh… it just looks like a geometric design – not even properly orientated to be a Star of David. I am sure they have had some tasteless items in the past – but it seems to me this is just a design. YMMV.
- penguinchris
  
  I think after the Najavo thing, people who like to stir up controversy are looking for whatever Urban Outfitters stuff they can claim is offensive. They do certainly have tasteless (or just clueless) designs occasionally, but even if tasteless it’s never something a reasonable person could possibly take actual offense at.
  - Mister44
    
    I have to wonder… what do these people do about places like Spencers who make their money on crude and tasteless. Like the Irish upset about the a hat with, what was it, Irish Yoga – that would be something mild you would expect at Spencers and the like around St. Patrick’s day. I guess when UO or Ambercrombie make something stupid, it’s a shock, one that must be corrected. Having a whole store of stupid I guess is something too big to fight.
fergus1948

I have just had to remove all the glow stars from my son’s bedroom ceiling.
Thank you ADL!
Emo Pinata

I think communists using Helen Keller’s name might have a different meaning…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller#Political_activities

She was one of the most outspoken supporters for communism and socialism in the early 1900s. I believe she even went to China and was accepted by the government as a hero of sorts.
- Brainspore
  
  And what better way to promote socialist ideals than by lending one’s name to a line of overpriced designer fashion products?