A News Roundup and the Politics of Fast Fashion



TOPICS DISCUSSED

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EPISODE RESOURCES

TRANSCRIPT

Sarah [00:00:07] This is Sarah Stewart Holland. 

Beth [00:00:08] And this is Beth Silvers.  

Sarah [00:00:10] Thank you for joining us for Pantsuit Politics.  

Beth [00:00:25] Hello everyone. Welcome to Pantsuit Politics. Thanks for joining us for this Thanksgiving Week episode. Today we're going to do a little newsround up because quite a few really significant things have happened since we last were with you. So we're going to cover the horrific shooting at Club Cue, the news that a special prosecutor has been appointed and a deal reached during COP27 regarding loss and damage across the world due to climate change. Then we are going to bring in our friends from Able. We've previously talked with you about our partnership with Able and we wanted to have them on today to talk more about the fashion industry and the kinds of problems that persist in the fashion industry. There's a very political discussion about those problems and how Able is trying to take a different approach to solving them. And then Outside of Politics, Sarah is forcing me to have a discussion with her about the White House wedding. And I will do my best, but I am not excited and I just want to log my protests formally here at the beginning.  

Sarah [00:01:23] I threatened to chain myself to something if she didn't, so there was actually the threat of physical protest if we didn't talk about Naomi Biden's wedding.  

Beth [00:01:34] I respect our partnership, and I don't want you to chain yourself to anything. I'm just, for the record, making sure that people know how this came about.  

Sarah [00:01:42] If you are like me, you are in a flurry of gift buying right now. All the warnings about the supply chain really sort of put some gas in my tank last year. But all the news stories about how the supply chain is overwhelming has led to some real procrastination on my end. So if you are like me, we have put together our favorite things of 2022 into a gift guide that you can check out. It has all kinds of amazing things we've talked about over the past year on the show, products we've loved, books we've written, etc. And then, of course, we have Able on today and they have amazing gifts. And they're offering our listeners 40% off Sitewide with the code PANTSUIT40. So you should definitely check that out.  

Beth [00:02:24] Up next, we are going to do a little news roundup to talk about some of the really significant things that have happened in the past few days. Sarah, it was heartbreaking to hear the news out of Colorado that there's been another mass shooting in Colorado. This time, five people were killed, 25 injured at Club Q, which was known as a real safe haven for the queer community in Colorado Springs.  

Sarah [00:03:00] Colorado Springs is known to be quite conservative, is the home of Focus on the Family. I had an interview with a LGBTQ woman on first and she was saying, "I know that Colorado Springs has this reputation, but I've always felt safe and welcome here. And this just breaks my heart because I feel like people are going to make all these assumptions about the gay community and how they're treated here and that has not been my experience." Which I thought was really interesting, because especially when a state experiences so many mass shootings as Colorado has, Aurora, Columbine-- I mean, you can just name the really famous ones and they fill up almost your entire hand-- it's easy to make so many assumptions and to sort of shrink down the experiences of the people there into this one dimensional narrative. And nobody deserves that, not the people that lost their lives at Club Q or the people who survived. I think the more we experience, the emotional reaction is to go to this place of everything is terrible. All is lost. It's not that I don't think our gun culture in America is terrible, I do. But I think we inevitably shrink the humanity of the people experiencing these shootings when we go to those extreme political reactions.  

Beth [00:04:18] It seems like Colorado's governor, Jared Polis, has done a really nice job being extremely visible around this tragedy and making sure that he speaks to that complexity, that he speaks to the fact that Colorado wants to be a welcoming and inclusive state. And he, of course, is the first openly gay male elected governor. And he and his husband have both spoken to this tragedy and how important it is for people to be able to live safely in their communities and to feel a sense of community around them. I was thinking about this discussion that we had last week, Sarah. We were invited to talk with Patrick of Truth Over Tribe for his podcast. We're often invited into Christian spaces to talk about our work and our personal faith and how we see those two things going together. And Patrick was a really gracious, generous host asking us many interesting questions. And one of the things that he talked about is how can churches show up to improve the political climate and to make America kinder, safer, more civil place to be. And I was thinking about my answer to him, which was that churches can absolutely help facilitate better political dialog, but it's not going to be through programing as much as through being places where people really feel a sense of belonging. And I still believe that, but I was thinking over the weekend about how I wish I had just said the best thing churches can do right now, especially Christian churches, is outside of church. Promote that sense of belonging first, that sense that everyone has a place here, that everyone should be safe here, that we should lead with love in all circumstances. And it makes me really sad that it is so easy to pull out those James Dobson quotes. It is so easy to find someone saying something really hateful about the LGBTQ community, or not even hateful, but just that really puts distance between us and people in that community. And I hope that we will just take yet another lesson here and try to do better.  

Sarah [00:06:26] How wonderful that that community can feel represented at the very top of the leadership in the state when they're going through something like this. That's the importance of diverse leadership and representation, especially from a historically marginalized community. I would like to see the church bring its power and energy and resources that it has brought to lobbying against gay marriage and against abortion to gun control. That's what I would like to see, because they can do it. I mean, we got a story this weekend in another league that around the Hobby Lobby case conservative Christian organizations were tipped off to the decision, that they were sort of the background, the behind the scenes. Arguably corrupt level of lobbying coming from these organizations at the very top reaches at the Supreme Court. So I would love to see that energy brought to something like gun control where people keep losing their lives, because I think it really could shift and change the politics of our country. We have seen what Christian organizations can do when they bring their time and energy and resources to a political topic they feel strongly about. It would be some nice movement in the American political scene. I don't know if we're going to see it, but considering that so many of these events happen at churches as well, I think it's worth considering.  

Beth [00:07:44] Well, so much love to everyone who lost someone at Club Q, who lost some part of themselves because of this experience, who feel a little bit less safe today. Please know that you are welcomed and celebrated and cared for here. We also wanted to talk about news that Attorney General Merrick Garland has appointed Jack Smith to serve as a special prosecutor to look into two matters concerning former twice impeached, banned and now reinstated to Twitter and presidential candidate once again, Donald Trump.  

Sarah [00:08:19] Bless.  

Beth [00:08:20] Jack Smith, who just has the most innocuous name I've ever heard.  

Sarah [00:08:26] Can we talk about the name. When they picked the name, I was like, was the name like the number one qualification? Because you'd be so impossible to dox or follow or harass. How are you going to harass somebody named Jack Smith? Godspeed. That's like harassing Linda Brown. Good luck finding her. That's the first thing I thought.  

Beth [00:08:46] Yeah, he is perfectly named. He has an excellent resume. He's a registered independent. There were so many wise considerations in making this choice, but he will be looking into both the classified documents stored at Mar-a-Lago situation, as well as Trump's involvement in January six. Of course, Trump thinks this is the worst thing that has ever happened, a symbol of truly corrupt government. And I just have to say thank you Attorney General Merrick Garland. Because I think this was the only move that he could really make in light of Trump's presidential announcement and a way to keep the investigation going and ensure that to the best of his ability and the impossible task of trying not to politicize these investigations. I think this was the only move available to him, and I'm glad that he made it quickly and decisively.  

Sarah [00:09:40] Now, I agree. I think it was the right move. This guy seems highly qualified. It won't matter to a certain segment of the right, but it matters to me-- the old Faith Hill song. And I think that it's a move in the right direction. How are you feeling about Trump being reinstated to Twitter while we're on the topic of our twice impeached former president?  

Beth [00:10:01] I think it is just so transparently commercial in nature that I can't bring myself to care about this decision. Also, we were on C-SPAN on Saturday morning, and if I needed something to make me really say that my relationship with Twitter is done, it was being on C-SPAN on Saturday morning. So, for me, I have said my goodbyes to that site. I still have my accounts. I still pop on occasionally. But it is not the forum for me that it used to be. And so I'm just not going to get worked up about Donald Trump. I mean, Godspeed to everybody. Good luck. I hope that the people who have put a lot of heart and soul into making Twitter work well have the best outcomes available to them from all of this. But that's about all I've got. What about you?  

Sarah [00:10:46] I am increasingly sad, even though I'm not an active Twitter user. I read a lot of Twitter, like I just read it in other places and it delights me. And reading through other people's tweets about the connection and community that people have found on Twitter. And I think about what I've learned from communities on Twitter that have come together and put together this narrative around their perspective and how valuable that is, it's just making me increasingly sad that all that can go away. I think it has platforms, some really important perspectives and I don't know how we'd get that anywhere else. Or it's just the other platforms don't allow for the type of readership and sharing that Twitter does, which is both a blessing and a curse. And so when I was reading through so many communities, the disability community, the black community, the adoption community, even just MeToo-- would MeToo have happened without Twitter? I don't know. I think in the beginning it was just kind of like, well, I don't read it that much-- even though, again, that's not really true-- who cares? And I'm just getting increasingly sad. I think I've sort of moved a little bit now. I don't want Twitter to go away. I don't want it to disappear. I think something would be lost. And he's such a disaster. I just it's kind of disturbing in any context when you see someone with so much power flailing in such a public way. So I'm just sort of increasingly disquieted by the scene over there.  

Beth [00:12:20] Well, I don't know if it's going to go away. I just think the experience is going to change dramatically. I think it's already changing quite a bit. I also think that Twitter is where the everything of everything is overstated. And so the idea that it's just going to have this spectacular demise in the next weeks or months, I think is probably not true. It's just hard for me to say I'm outraged that Donald Trump would be back on this platform when I think the direction of this platform is going to be more trolling, more hard right wing, more nihilistic. And that just means it's probably not going to have much of a place of importance to me and it hasn't for a while, if I'm being honest, and I think that's just going to continue. I don't disagree with you. I think that it's been undeniably important in some really positive and some really negative ways in our society. And there's a lot to learn from the prominence that Twitter has had for us. It's hard to learn that in the midst of this chaos, but I sort of look forward to those retrospectives.  

Sarah [00:13:23] Yeah.  

Beth [00:13:24] Well, the last thing we want to talk about today is COP 27, which we have not spent much time on because of the mid-term elections. But in Egypt, world leaders have gathered the Conference of Parties to discuss global climate change and how the world can work more cooperatively. This year, the focus was not only on reducing carbon emissions and thinking through how we can prevent future climate disaster, but also on coming to grips with the damage that current climate disaster is having across the globe and has been having for a couple of decades now. Small island nations since the 1990s have been coming to industrialized countries to say, we are bearing the brunt of your carbon emissions. Our sea levels are rising, our volcanoes are erupting. We are dealing with hurricanes and tsunamis and overwhelming damage and all you offer us in the face of that is debt. And that's been true. Industrialized nations have offered some debt, not as much as they've promised to offer, but some loans to help these countries rebuild. And then another disaster happens. And these countries that are drowning in debt as it is, have to come back and just be offered more debt. And so this year there was a real focus at COP27 on the idea of loss and damage. Some kind of international fund for countries to receive something like insurance payouts when they have undergone terrible losses from climate related events. It's incredibly complicated. The details are unclear to me, Sarah, but I talked about this on More to Say. I have not talked about this with you yet. I'm curious what your thoughts are.  

Sarah [00:15:03] I'm encouraged that we've gotten movement on this. I think that's the most important part when you are negotiating with nations; is any forward momentum, any sort of breakthrough. You don't complain about the set up of the fund or the payout. You say, oh my gosh, we got to fund. Hallelujah, praise the Lord. I mean, because when you have players like this that any just centimeter of agreement is a massive accomplishment. Poor John Kerry got COVID up there and kept negotiating. So I think that this is a wonderful breakthrough. I think any breakthrough surrounding climate change when you're talking about international agreement is huge. And those developments and their positive after effect sort of compound on each other. So I'm incredibly encouraged.  

Beth [00:15:44] The other really significant breakthrough of the past couple of weeks is that the United States and China are going to resume climate talks. That's hugely important because both the United States and China are massive polluters in the world, have enormous control over the world's economy. And the relationship between our two countries is beyond fraught. And so for us to be working cooperatively on anything is a real testament to the diplomatic efforts that have been underway with our government. And just a credit to the State Department, the administration, all of the people who've been working hard behind the scenes to get any kind of dialog going there. Thinking about climate and sustainability is a good transition to our next conversation. We are welcoming Barrett Ward and Jen Millen from able to talk with us about the Able brand and specifically about the climate issues, the income inequality issues, the gender and diversity issues that they have been trying to think through in creating this brand. It is a really different approach to commerce that they're describing, and we thought it was well worth your time. Just a reminder, that we do have a partnership with Able. When you purchase from Able using our code, we do receive commissions on those purchases. So Able is a sponsor of Pantsuit Politics. We are grateful for that sponsorship and we also are extremely grateful for their work. Jen and Barrett, we are so happy that you're here at Pantsuit Politics. I coach feature problem solving for fourth to eighth graders and that is a six step competition process where you take a really big topic and you think about all the dimensions of that topic and work your way to prioritizing what you can help make better about that really big, hard topic. And I was thinking about Able and you all feel like just the living embodiment of the future problem solving process to me. I was thinking about fast fashion as this topic where you just seem to be looking at all these dimensions of it and saying, how can we make progress? So will you tell everybody, Barrett a little bit about how you started and if that metaphor that I just made rings true to you.  

Barrett [00:18:02] What first rang true is could you come teach that to my four daughthers and my family please?  

Beth [00:18:07] I'd be delighted to. 

Barrett [00:18:09] I have four daughters that could use that very much.  It's interesting, I'd love to hear Jen's feedback on that as well. But what you're seeing does ring true. But it's also something that we kind of got into accidentally at first. So I was living in Ethiopia with my wife and we ran across for the first time that I had never seen so up close and personal was the commercial sex industry or sex slavery or prostitution. And there's two things that I really took away from that in meeting with these women. Number one is they all said, look, we are able bodied. We are grateful for the charity of helping us rehabilitate from the streets and health care, but we need a job. I mean, if we don't have a job at the end of this rehabilitation, we're going to go back to the street.  And then the second thing that I gained was in hearing the women's stories y'all, these are not women making bad choices with their life, which is kind of what I probably thought. But instead, you meet women that were trying to just support their children. Met one woman that had gone into the commercial sex industry so as to save her sister from breast cancer. And so we asked them, what do you want to make? And we'll try to go sell it. And as it turns out, in Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia, weaving has been around since the Queen of Sheba. I mean, it's a massively traditional garb that they wear there in Ethiopia-- these thin scarves. And anyways, they said that's what they'd want to make. And if they would have said, we want to make coffee cups, we'd be a coffee cup company today. But to that point, Beth, we landed in fashion and then started learning all these things about fast fashion, which really became our focus to try to figure out solutions that would impact not just a few people's lives, but as we grew, obviously could potentially impact the industry.  

Sarah [00:20:10] But that's so perfect because that's what happens. That's the struggle of future problem solving, is reining it in. You only get 20 problems and one underlying problem and 20 solutions and one underlying solution. And so how appropriate that in trying to pay attention to one small community and their struggle, that you realize like, oh, the tentacles are everywhere. And you stumble into these other trying to find a solution and then you're like, oh, wait, I've now encountered this other problem, and how do I... That's what I appreciate, because I think what I saw in Able when we were on the ground with you on [Inaudible] is that adaptability. Instead of saying, well, that's how it is and this is how this industry works, you just have to be adaptable. And it's not like you are still doing that exact thing you started doing. You have branched out. You have followed other solutions. You have this philosophy of, well, we can't just just grow to grow. The growth has to be in a direction of the sort of attention to the world and the problems of the world.  

Barrett [00:21:09] That's right. I appreciate that.  

Sarah [00:21:11] That's something we bat back and forth here at Pantsuit Politics. There's this sort of business mindset that says grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. And when you have these values and this purpose, how do you do that? How do you stay true to what you started doing and still continue to serve and continue to grow?  

Barrett [00:21:32] While we were having an impact on individual lives as we were small, that was our focus. Making sure that the impact that we thought we were having, we're actually having. And so we did a lot of audits and making sure that women on the ground experience is what we thought it was. But as we grew and started to become a brand that was recognized, we realized we might be able to impact the industry. And then the question became, how do we do that? And so because I think as a general philosophy-- 1996, y'all may remember there was a picture of a boy from Pakistan that came out and he was selling a football. And on that football was a Nike swoosh. And then all of a sudden, the words child labor became something that everybody knew about.  And what we saw during that time was consumer demand drove Nike to solutions. Nike first did all their PR standing and said, that's not our fault. We don't own that manufacturing. And consumers said, oh, that's your fault. You got to do something about it. You have leverage here. And all of a sudden shareholder value started to drop. And guess what? They figured out how to really work on child labor solutions. And so we really believe there's the different segments. There's the private and the public sectors.  And the consumers on this side of that coin are going to be the ones to drive change through these brands more quickly than anything that could happen. As we see legislation, for example, on minimum wages hasn't changed in however many years from the $7 range, right? So the things that do drive those things up a lot of the times is consumer demand. But Jen, what would you say about that? I thought you had an interesting analogy with that.  

Jen [00:23:34] Yeah, I think asking about growth and how to grow, we always want to make sure we're growing for a purpose and that as we're growing we are actually creating more living wage jobs for women and that we're achieving that goal. I think for us, we've so recognized all the social statistics there are around when you pay the women in that community is the fastest way to lift that community out of poverty. So there's all these studies that have been done globally, and when you pay the men in that community, it's great, lovely, but when you pay the women in that community they give almost twice as much of their money back into the community. And it lists their communities income significantly faster. And so that's really like one of the main things. Like he said, we got into this so organically through Barrett and where he was living and his relationships. But I kind of came into it a couple of years in. Barrett and I have worked together for almost nine years now, and I'm an economics major. I'm a big numbers nerd level intelligent. Like, how would we solve this problem? To your point Beth. And I think what's really cool is we sat down and said this happened really organically through our community and through our people that we know and what they needed at the time. But I think if we sat down at a table and said, okay, how would we want to impact poverty in the world and what would we do with that?  We would look at all the social statistics around paying women. We would say, okay, we got to figure out how to pay women a good wage.  And then we'd probably look at the industries that employed the most women and fashion's the largest industrial employer of women in the world. And so then but that's a very big international thing. It's hard to legislate all of this stuff, but the consumer piece of it is not as difficult because you can educate the consumers much more quickly than you can get lots of international legislation passed. And so what if the biggest way to impact poverty around the world is actually to educate fashion consumers on paying the people that make their products well? And eliminating that sense of anonymity that a lot of Americans have around I bought this product and it was probably made by a robot or a machine because we all saw a couple of little videos on Mister Rogers or Sesame Street or something when we were kids and you lose sight of the fact that like, no, there's people touching your product all the way through. It's supporting people's livelihoods. It's supporting their incomes all the way through. And when you decide to prioritize different things in a purchase, it impacts the supply chain of people that have touched them.  

Beth [00:26:17] When you talk about prioritizing different things in a purchase, it makes me think of an interview I saw that you gave, Jen, a couple of years ago where you were suggesting that fashion really ought to come with something like a nutrition label. Can you talk a little bit about that idea and what components you all at Able would put into that label that you want consumers to understand about what they're buying?  

Jen [00:26:39] Yeah, absolutely. I think living wage is a huge piece of it. So for the people that made the product, what were they paid and can they live comfortably in their community on that wage? And that's the difference between a living wage and a minimum wage. Minimum wage is just about a law. It's about whatever a law or restriction is around. It has nothing to do with how much it costs to live in a community. So in Nashville, the living wage is almost $15 an hour, but the minimum wage I think is seven and a quarter. It's so vastly different. So I think living wage is a huge piece of that for us. I also think like we did a lot of anonymous, independent interviews of people who make our products back in 2017. Like pre-COVID, we had this huge initiative we were working on called Accountable that actually led us to be one of the first fashion companies to publish our lowest wages. And we did lots of interviews about, like, are you comfortable at work? Do you feel safe? If you need to go to the doctor, like, do you feel cared for? There's a huge piece of that component. And then I also think the more we've gotten into this, we got into it from the people perspective. We've realized how important the environmental perspective is. It was impacting the people and the communities that we are working with and trying to partner with. So our kind of three tiers right now are really like that social responsibility, the responsibility to our customer and then the responsibility to the environment too.  

Sarah [00:28:17] Well, I think that consumer education component is so interesting because we have a consumer model that the customer's always right, what's driving a company's decision making comes from them. And I think it takes a lot to stand up and say, well, part of the problem that is impacting the people making the clothes is how the people who are buying the clothes feel about the clothes. I even think about your item swapping process, like that wouldn't even occur. That's not something I'm demanding. I wouldn't have even known to demand it. I wouldn't have even known to ask like, hey, my body changed and I paid a lot for this; what happens? It blew my mind. And I would love to know the process that gets you to stuff like that. Like, how can we change the consumer's relationship with you?  

Jen [00:29:09] Yeah, I think a lot of times the hesitation around doing more ethical fashion is that it's expensive, frankly, often times. And I feel like we're very fairly priced, but I also know you can go on Amazon and get a version of what we offer for a fraction of the price. And so it's about how do you make that a really worthwhile investment for someone? I have two little kids. I have been postpartum for a year. It's kind of like I want to invest in these beautiful pieces, but I'm just not really sure if they're going to fit me in another year either direction. And it makes me feel a lot safer to say, yes, I'm going to buy this sweater that's $120. I'm going to buy this dress, it's $150, because I know I'm going to be able to wear it in several years because the company is going to honor the commitment I've made to their workers and their values. I think that's pretty fair. If we're asking for y'all to invest in our impact and what we're trying to do, I think it's really fair for us to invest in you and what changes will happen with you coming up too.  

Sarah [00:30:23] But I think what's so powerful about that is, again, that's like education. That's not just meeting a demand. It's saying, like, you you deserve this. If it's an investment, this is what an investment means. It doesn't just mean the quality of the fabric. It means the quality of the fabric. It means the quality of the way in which the worker is treated. It means what we see as the lifespan of this item. I mean, that's what's changed. When we were talking about fast fashion, you talked to my grandmother and she was, like, we had four shirts and five pairs of pants and they lasted for 5 to 8 years. And it's just that churn and how many clothes should we have and how long should they last? Is it just a season? That churn is so very different now. And to fight back against that and educate and push back against that momentum is really incredible.  

Barrett [00:31:17] I joke about the fact that -- and it's true--  my grandma's house, the furniture literally never changed in 40 years. And she used the same piece of tinfoil her entire life, I'm pretty sure. And  instead consumerism I saw has grown 400% in the last 20 years. And the seasonal churn it really happened with even the H&Ms by launching a new season every week as opposed to every quarter or third of the year. And it really does take a consumer mindset shift of so if I buy a $15 T-shirt , number one is how long is that T-shirt going to last if it's $15. Number two, is I'm I overly investing in trend in my wardrobe? And number three, if I'm getting such a good deal, is the person on the other end of this getting the same? What kind of deal are they getting out of it? And and instead, if you just think to yourself, you know what, I'm going to buy a $40 T-shirt instead that I know is quality that I know has a lifetime guarantee on it or a size swap option and make it a more staple piece. And I do see consumers really thinking more about how to do capsule wardrobes like that. So that's served us well.  

Jen [00:32:42] And then you don't have to buy it again. You don't have to make the decision again after that. Like you've decided once, right?  

Sarah [00:32:48] Now, listen, that is the Holy Spirit speaking. That right there. You don't have to make the decision again. Because I think we think that that churn is freedom, but it is not. It is its own kind of prison. Because not only do you not have to buy that t shirt again, you don't have to decide what to do with the $15 one you bought every about two months when it's nasty. Like, should I throw it away? Should I turn it into a rag? Should I donate it? It's a whole other level of decision making that's eliminated. 

Jen [00:33:18] That's the whole part of fast fashion that's so dangerous, I think, is it's made clothes disposable. And we can say they're not, but it's disposable after two or three washes or whatever it is before it falls apart. And it really is like, okay, if you buy a jean jacket from, insert big brand name here, and you have to replace that every year and a half for the next 10 years, or you could buy an Able jacket. I've had mine for almost six years now. It's in perfect condition and you can wear that all the way through. Your cost per wear is actually less expensive on the Able jacket.  

Sarah [00:33:57] Yeah. And can I just say I just feel like we get caught up in the [Inaudible] we have this very transactional view, but there is something very special about owning a piece of clothing that goes with your life through that.  

Jen [00:34:09] Yes.  

Sarah [00:34:09] That's why our grandmothers kept outfits they even-- like my grandmother still has her little wedding sweater because she wore it over and over.  

Jen [00:34:16] I love that.  

Sarah [00:34:17] You grow attached to all these memories wrapped up in the item of clothing as opposed to just, like I said, discarding it. It takes on sort of the memories. If you wear something for six years, you're going to feel very differently about that piece of clothing than if you just wear it for six months.  

Jen [00:34:38] I agree. And it can become a signature piece.  

Sarah [00:34:40] Yes. I love it.  

Beth [00:34:42] When you think through that specialness too, it is special to know that people made it and that those people have been treated as people in the process of making it. So Barrett you began thinking about these women in Ethiopia. You've obviously expanded in many directions. You have much more than scarves now, and I know that you have women who are in recovery and have done second chance hiring and that they're like all kinds of communities that you are helping through this work. Jen mentioned the environmental focus. I say all that to ask this question and I would love to hear how both of you think about this. What problem are you excited about trying to make progress on next? What else are you thinking through?  

Barrett [00:35:26] For me, it's really about repairing what we lost during COVID. We were on a trajectory of, as Jen had mentioned, publishing our lowest wages, working on the nutrition label. But all of that was predicated by being able to visit our manufacturers and audit them face to face. Because if you're just doing an audit over the phone or over Zoom, there's nothing safe about that for the person being interviewed in an audit. And so we've just got to get back on the ground. And that's really what I think 2023 for us is. It's getting back to visiting our manufacturers and auditing with them, alongside them to really help make sure that they are doing what they intend to do with their employees as well. Because it's hard, nobody wants to be really audited, do they? But I think at the end of the day if we're going to be serious about solutions to poverty, we have to dig in to that level of trying to find out the hard stuff. And we found out hard stuff in the past. But the biggest thing we try to teach not only our manufacturers but other brands that we come alongside and say, hey, you can do this too and you can be this transparent with your customers, is we try to teach them you don't have to be perfect before you're honest with your customers about where you are on your journey.  

Sarah [00:36:49] That is so good. I love that. You do not have to be perfect before you can be honest. That applies in lots of areas of life.  

Jen [00:36:56]  I think you have to trust that people will listen and that people will seek to understand where you're at when you're going to be honest before you're perfect, too. And I think that's been a little bit of the secret sauce for us with our customers who are wonderful. It's like we trust them to be able to lay out something detailed that we're working through and have them fully digest it.  

Sarah [00:37:21]  Listen, I would say too I understand what you're saying, that you sort of lost that opportunity due to COVID, but also you gained an opportunity on the consumer side because the status quo was disrupted in a very dramatic way. And when that happens, people are ready to rethink things, including how they dress and what they're buying and what their closets are like. And so you gained an opportunity too for sure.  

Barrett [00:37:44] You're right. That's true. We did see that a lot. Everything kind of slowed down in COVID, didn't it?  

Sarah [00:37:50] Yep.  

Barrett [00:37:51] People were reading more than just the headline. They started reading the next paragraph too, and that gave us the opportunity to speak to people more sincerely or more deeply about why we're trying to do what we're doing to the point of Jen saying education is what it's all about.  

Jen [00:38:08] The thing that is so important to me that people understand is that in the same way that you get to vote, you also get to spend money and have impact with the choices you make on who you're purchasing from, what you're purchasing and how you're purchasing. And I think that's often missed in the busyness of life and it just feels like get through this transaction and this transaction. And I think you miss how impactful you can be if you slow down and are more thoughtful about your purchases.  

Sarah [00:38:40] Well, and let me brag on y'all. Listen, I think people know that. And I think sometimes that can feel like a drag and really you want shopping to be fun. 

Jen [00:38:47]  I know.  

Sarah [00:38:48]  And you guys have bridged the gap. It doesn't feel like a drag. It still feels like you're getting beautiful, fashionable. That is an accomplishment.  

Jen [00:39:02] Thank you. I'm grateful for that.  

Barrett [00:39:03] Thank you.  

Beth [00:39:13] All right. Outside of Politics, Sarah, I'm just going to turn this over to you because you said that you would protest if we did not talk about the White House wedding.  

Sarah [00:39:21] I mean, you don't have any feelings at all about it-- just zero.  

Beth [00:39:26] Well, that's not exactly true, but my feelings are not glowing and positive like yours.  

Sarah [00:39:32] What did you not like?  

Beth [00:39:33] No, it's not that I don't like it. I'm happy for them. I thought the pictures that I saw were beautiful. I think it is a tricky thing for the country when people are struggling with gas and grocery prices to have the sort of royal feel that a White House wedding creates. I think it's tricky. I think it's fraught. I also just don't have a lot to say. I thought it looked pretty. I'm done. I'm not going to analyze the choices.  

Sarah [00:40:02] Well, I think that's why they made the choice to keep it so private. It's not like they were inviting everybody in to see the reception. I do appreciate The Washington Post reporters in particular who camped out and got me the details I very much needed. Thank you, sirs and madams. I loved it. I loved it. I mean, hell, Princess Diana and Prince Charles got married in the middle of Margaret Thatcher's economic destruction. Sometimes people just need something pretty to look at, you know. And it was beautiful. All those white flowers across the front of the White House, the portico. I thought the White House might have been the prettiest attendee, if I'm being honest. I thought it looked magnificent. I thought the white flowers were chef's kiss.  

Beth [00:40:45] It's a beautiful building, no doubt. The flowers were lovely.  

Sarah [00:40:49] Thought her her dress was gorgeous. We had a little internal debate in some of my text message threads about whether the solid sleeves or they should have been lace sleeves. I made the argument that we've seen lace sleeves, we have not seen what she did. I loved it. Ralph Lauren, fantastic choice. I don't know the symbolism between the fact that he wore a brooch instead of a butneer but I liked it. I thought it was really cool. Did you know they were living in the White House?  

Beth [00:41:15] No.  

Sarah [00:41:15] Yeah, they're living in the apartment that Melania's parents and Michelle's mother lived in.  

Beth [00:41:21] I don't care. But that's great. Sure. 

Sarah [00:41:23] I think it's fascinating. I like it. I said, whatever, she's Hunter's oldest kitten. He has a baby, so let her live there if she wants to. I will say this, Beth, I got some of these additional details from The Washington Post article. I still haven't seen a picture of the second dress. It is the greatest tragedy of my life that this whole ceremony dress, reception dress trend did not exist when I got married. I'm so sad we missed out on that.  

Beth [00:41:52] I am relieved that we missed out on that.  I didn't need my wedding to be more expensive.   

Sarah [00:41:58] No, more dresses.  

Beth [00:41:59] Here's the thing, I think that proms and some weddings and a lot of these events where you get to really like make it over the top lovely are kind of wasted on the young. I want some more of this in my life now. Now that I could do the multiple dresses and not think, oh, my God, does this mean that we can't pay for the washer and dryer this month. Like at this time when income-wise it would be better when I love my friends deeply and they are kind of the people that I'm going to be with for most of my life. Like, I just think we could have some really good parties now and some celebratory rituals now and some lavishness now that we just didn't appreciate. And that was mostly stressful when we were in our twenties and teens.  

Sarah [00:42:45] Well, I will say that they did something from my wedding, which I just love it when something gets picked up 20 years later, they read I Carry Your Heart With Me by E. Cummings.. Fun fact, Nicholas and I have the opening lines of that poem inscribed inside of our wedding bands. Also, I'm obsessed with her veil. I love a Maria Von Trapp veil. I want it to go all the way from the altar, all the way to the back of the church. I love a long veil. I don't think we've actually said their name. So Naomi Biden and Peter Neal who got married. When their, I think their oldest grandchild got married, that veil. Oh, did you have a long veil?  

Beth [00:43:21] I didn't wear a veil at all.  

Sarah [00:43:24] Well, I had a long avail because I'm obsessed with long veils, and then I forgot to pull it over my face for the walk down the aisle. Just completely forgot. Walked with it back, which is fine. Oh, no, I had a long veil.  

Beth [00:43:35] I got married in a park. It would have been, I think, a lot to have a veil. Not out of the question, but I tried to have a very like casual feel for my whole vibe with the wedding.  

Sarah [00:43:48] They're also fun little details from the reception-- again, still need that picture of the second dress, but I'll be patient-- about how she danced with the president Biden whispered into her ear the whole time. I thought that was the sweetest. Everybody looked like they were just happy and delighted and enjoying every minute of it. And I like to see that joy across people's faces at a wedding because they can be pretty stressful, especially at the White House and especially since it was 39 degrees outside. But the pictures were stunning. And I think it's nice. I like a public wedding. I think a White House wedding is the absolute funnest. This is only our 19th one. They're rare. And I really liked reading all the like historical wrap ups of like the ones I've had recently. Like, I didn't know about Peter Souza. Did you know that basically Barack Obama pressured him into proposing to his girlfriend by offering the White House as a wedding venue? Although that was hilarious.  

Beth [00:44:44] I do appreciate how much love there seems to exist in the Biden family, and I also like how President Biden seems completely unapologetic about Hunter, even though there's been a lot of controversy, there's about to be a lot of controversy. Feels like a really confident thing to me that he just says, no, this is my son and this is my granddaughter and we're doing this. I think that's lovely. Are we done? Do you feel better? We've done all we need to do here.  

Sarah [00:45:14] I do. I guess so. Now, I think you're right. I think his delight in his grandchildren in particular is so lovely. I will never tire of reading about how he calls them all every day and checks in on them. I want on that list. I mean, we're not that-- we are far. She's 28 I'm 41. But I love how they delight in each other, and I think that confidence is a good way to put it. And also I just love a wedding just straight up. I get so much Instagram wedding content fed to me. Like clearly the algorithm has figured this out that I love it even though I've been married for 20 years. But here I am, I still delight in a wedding and a long veil. And Naomi knocked it out of the park. Good job, sister. Good job.  

Beth [00:46:02] Okay, well, thank you. Great happiness to you, the Bidens. All the best. And everyone, thank you for joining us for this episode of Pantsuit Politics. See, take a real buffet approach. You take what you enjoy, you leave the rest. It's fine. There'll be more food later. There'll be another Outside of Politics for me. It's okay. We will be back with you on Friday with one of our favorite episodes that we think is a perfect match for the Thanksgiving holiday. We previously spoke with Dan Harris from 10% Happier, and we're going to share that conversation again with you on Friday. We'll be back with a brand new episode next Tuesday. Everybody have the best week available to you.  

[00:46:58] Pantsuit Politics is produced by Studio D Podcast Production. Alise Napp is our managing director.  

Sarah [00:47:03] Maggie Penton is our community engagement manager. Dante Lima is the composer and performer of our theme music.  

Beth [00:47:09] Our show is listener-supported. Special thanks to our executive producers.  

Executive Producers (Read their own names) [00:47:13] Martha Bronitski. Linda Daniel. Allie Edwards. Janice Elliott. Sarah Greenup. Julie Haller. Helen Handley. Tiffany Hasler. Emily Holiday. Katie Johnson. Katina Zugenalis Kasling. Barry Kaufman. Molly Kohrs. Lori LaDow. Lilly McClure. Emily Neesley. Tawni Peterson. Tracy Puthoff. Sarah Ralph. Jeremy Sequoia. Katie Stiggers. Karen True. Onica Ulveling. Nick and Alysa Villeli. Katherine Vollmer. Amy Whited.  

Beth [00:47:48] Jeff Davis. Melinda Johnston, Michelle Wood. Joshua Allen. Morgan McCue. Nicole Berklas Paula Bremer and Tim Miller.  

Sarah [00:47:58] I actually thought if you want to do Ellen in and outside politics, I thought we could do it in the news roundup.  

Beth [00:48:02] Now, that's worse.  

Sarah [00:48:07] Okay. Please put that at the end of the show.  

Beth [00:48:09] It's so much worse.  







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