Maker 101

The Swagnation bag.  $79.95

I'm currently in a bit of a kerfuffle with an on-line vendor that keeps popping up in my Facebook feed. The vendor, Swagnation, posted this response on Thursday: 

Hello Guys, I am sorry, but we didn't rip anyone off. I just checked out Jungle Tribe's site, and our design isn't identical to any of their designs. Our images are not identical to any of their images. Plus, there are numerous sellers selling these types of bags on etsy, not just jungletribe. Why are we the ones being attacked? We just offer a less expensive, more affordable alternative compared to the ones sold on etsy which can range anywhere between $200 - $400, thanks, [1]

They are responding to my responses to their ads, to which I have posted twice. Finally - tired of continually seeing their ads, I went to their FB page and posted on the page itself.

Why?

One of the many iterations of the design on the Jungle Tribe site.
There are many more views. 

Because their "Steampunk" bags producer is making bags that are clearly derivative of the work of Jungle Tribe, the designer and maker of these convertible hip bags. Their maker isn't copying the designs exactly, so he's right - they're not identical. But they don't have to be. There are some differences in ornamentation, a rivet here, a d-ring there. But the fact remains that the overall design is virtually the same and obviously derivative. I have to admit that part of my outrage is that this isn't the first time I've seen Jungle Tribe's work copied. "We're not the only one" is irrelevant, totally sidestepping the question. This neat maneuver from Swagnation can be considered an argumentum ad populum, a red herring. It cannot legitimize bad behavior in any context. But in some ways, their excuse makes this a little bit worse. 

At least this time, the scammers took their own photos of the product. Small comfort.

But their final argument relies on the WalMart principle. And this is where it goes totally off the rails. This may be the part that Swagnation totally fails to grasp.

Jungle Tribe designed this bag. They did the prototypes, and more prototypes; they came up with the concept of a hip bag/holster that is convertible, with the dropped line, and decorated with eyelets and rivets and d-rings. They designed many different variations of their basic design. They've been doing this particular design for at least 3 or 4 years. I know because I've been drooling over their bags for that long.

And they're expensive. Not outrageously, not like a Coach handbag which may have been made in Asia, where you're really paying for the brand. What you're paying for from Jungle Tribe are the prototypes, the designs that failed, and the ideas that were discarded on the way to this product. You're paying for Jungle Tribe to hand-make this bag for you in Los Angeles. Cut it out, sew it, set all those fiddly rivets and eyelets and d-rings. See, I've talked to Jungle Tribe about this.

Those dozens upon dozens of Facebook likes and links means that the company who designed the bag is not getting paid for their design; their money is going instead to a company that is undercutting them on price, to which much of the cash is going to a middleman (Swagnation), and probably very little is going to the people who are physically stitching the bags together in a sweatshop somewhere.

Maybe Swagnation doesn't think that this is a problem. To a maker, this is wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Swagnation needs a course in Maker 101. 

As an artist and maker, I can speak from some authority. I have years and years of skills-building and experience. I have an education that I have paid a lot of money to achieve, and that process is ongoing. I have a substantial stock of materiel - clay, and tools, and expensive equipment and power tools for part of my studio; and beads, metal bits, findings and fittings, feathers and hardware, and tools for making dress accessories; and a large closet-worth of sewing materials, supplies, tools, and patterns that I've acquired in my career. I have bought and paid for repairs on 4 sewing machines over the years.

Everything I make is the result of myriad trials and prototypes, endless reiterations of the same bowl or cup form, tons of wearing and tweaking, repeated attempts at glaze mixes and changes and fixes; everything I make is informed and influenced by my experience and education in graphic and functional design, and uses virtually every of the principles of art and design. I'm not sure that you could name even a couple of these principles Swagnation, let alone define them or find your way through the tertiary color wheel.

The price of every piece I sell includes all the education, all the costs of sourcing, all the failures that have led to this one successful piece. Every other piece of pottery that has ended up under the hammer because it's broken in the firing, or the glaze has cracked, shivered, or dunted, or the bottom warped, all the pieces that succumbed to wind damage, go into the "cost" of a piece. Every walking stick "costs" not only the price of my time and materials, but the one that got dropped at the gallery and broken, and mysteriously lost. Every cravat I price includes not just the silk at $20+/yard, but designing the thing to one user's specifications, and then the half-dozen that stitched up crooked and had to be ripped out, and the silk that couldn't be used due to tape marks. Every necklace, bracelet and earring design is tested for how it hangs, how it wears. Every cup design is evaluated for how it feels against the lips, how it pours coffee into your mouth.

And then there's our time.

In my job - that is to say, the 40 hours per week at which I earn a wage - I make well over $20/hour (not including benefits!). I make that wage because I've been in the industry for over 20 years, and have a wide range of experiences and skills, not limited to knowledge of doing my job. I've taken specialized training related to what I do. My boss calls me when there are weirdnesses; I'm scheduled for training the rest of the staff because of the depth of my knowledge; I do specialized reporting on the database, that is beyond the understanding of my co-workers. I'm paid for the "magic" that I can do.

In fact, my skills as an artist and maker closely parallels that of a working stiff. Shouldn't I make a comparable "wage" for my time as an artist and maker? And shouldn't the makers of a leather hip bag also make a living wage? Jungle Tribe's makers deserve to make a wage commensurate with their considerable skills.

These are the kinds of considerations that go into a $300 convertible hip bag. 

These are the factors that influence every eye-roll and deep sigh of impatience when I hear "I can make that", and, "where do you find your stock?", or "it'll be good exposure." These are the reasons that I am irritated by Swagnation's product, and outraged by their response.

The legal fact is that these sorts of designs can't really be copyrighted, which means that what Swagnation's supplier is doing isn't actually illegal. Even if they could afford the attorneys and the time, Jungle Tribe would not likely prevail in any legal action against Swagnation and their producer. But it's not ethical. They didn't independently, out of their own brain, come up with this idea. They didn't develop the plans for the bags, they just copied what they got in a photo. Moving some rivets and turning a strap or two 90 degrees does not make it their design.

It is this kind of unfair and unethical competition that we makers face whenever we put a design out there[2]. Someone thinks that they can take our idea and make it - often for less - and profit off our work. It's not just the hours that we put into each item - it's the investments that we've made to create the thing that we'd like to profit from. The years of skills building are an investment, the education that we have paid to get, the sourcing of stock, the seemingly endless prototypes and failed designs are all investments in our work.

And we deserve to be paid for this. Not to have a producer in a third world country [3] copy our work and undercut our prices by 50%. Not to have the Steam-bro at the con say, "I can make that". We deserve to get paid for our skills.

This. This is why, today, that you are being "attacked" Swagnation. Because our livelihood as makers is attacked every time you sell one of the knockoffs that you got from an unethical producer. This is our experience. We deserve to make a living.



[1] I'm not going to base my argument on the lack of command of the language, but there's material here.

[2] One reason that I don't permit folks to take photos of some my work.

[3] A presumption; I don't have any proof of where these knockoffs are made, but I have suspicions. And even if my suspicions are unfounded, an item of this complexity certainly means a lot of labor hours, for which a $150 cost would indicate a really low wage.