where the rainbows end – elitism and exploitation within the sewing community

I was really pleased when Kate Ng, who blogs over at Time to Sew wrote a blog about payment for advertising work in sewing, because it gave me the kick up the bum I needed to air my own views on the subject, which have been fermenting for some time.

I’m going to start off by saying that I have some pretty strong views about this which for some reason people feel pretty challenged by. What I want to be clear about is that having a difference of opinion isn’t a personal thing*. It’s a joyous thing! Without it, the world would be really boring, and there would only be one flavour of jam (strawberry) which is great but strawberry jam forever? Come on.

*Unless you’re a racist, in which case you smell, get out.

Let’s get into the vegan meat substitute and bones of this thing then. The debate about payment for promotional work in the sewing and crafting community is not a new one – whether this is a company sending an Instagrammer a product in the hope they’ll mention it on their grid, to requests for unpaid writing work, illustration, photography…the list goes on.

The type of arrangement most of us are familiar with is the format used by Minerva and many other fabric companies – they supply a length of fabric (which the sewist may or may not be able to choose) and the sewist has free rein to make up a pattern of their choice, then produce some high quality shots and promote the final product on their social media. Although this is sometimes pitched as a “review” of the product, it’s always implicit in the arrangement that it’s a positive promotion of the fabric – this is coming from the marketing budget, after all.

Further along the food chain we have pattern testers. I think many of us are moving towards a mindset that pattern testers ethically, if not in practice, should be paid. The amount of labour involved in pattern testing is considerable and also can be open ended if the pattern needs revisions. A tester can’t go off piste and hack a pattern – they should be making it to the precise spec of the instructions. There’s also the risk that they might not end up with a wearable garment – the pattern might not be ready for release yet (that is the point of a test, after all). They also need specific skills over and above sewing skills – such as proofreading, to check for errors in the instructions.

However, there’s still loads of evidence from the community that a fair system of payment is nowhere near happening. The thing that appalled me most lately has been the people who put in so much work campaigning and educating on the issue of size inclusivity, only for pattern companies to then swoop in and offer them the “opportunity” of a further maybe 40+ hours of work to pattern test the new range, sew the garment, model, art direct, and shoot to produce advertising images – neatly combining the work of sample sewer and ad agency for the bargain fee of zilch. And if the person involves declines, she’s left feeling racked with remorse for the community SHE feels she’s let down.

Mythbusting

Now I want to take issue with a couple of points Kate has raised over in her blog. Kate suggests that the Minerva-type promo-type “gifted” gigs are unpaid perhaps because

“a majority of bloggers/instagrammers who do advertising work don’t do it as their main source of income”

…suggesting that she only knows one or two people who make a living this way. We clearly don’t mix in the same circles because I know many vloggers and Instagrammers whose only income that month will be from sewing related commissions. This is especially true in the disabled and chronically ill community, who are shut out from regular work for many reasons. Often sewing related commissions are the only way chronically ill and disabled people can fund their hobby.

I see wealthy, privileged people saying “if I want to do XYZ for free, what’s the problem?” and on the surface, yes I can see their point. But then I look around and I can metaphorically see all the poor, marginalised folk that need to and won’t get paid for same task – all because the elite don’t need to be paid for it so what’s the problem babe chill out.

Let them eat cake instead.

Second up, Kate argues that small sewing brands may not be able to afford to pay testers. To this I would say, RUBBISH. I am sick and tired of small businesses weeping and wailing as if it’s everyone’s moral duty to keep them afloat. Bollocks to that! It’s my moral duty to keep the homeless population in my borough from freezing on the streets, not to prop up a stranger’s fabric business from some weird implied responsibility to the sewing community.

I’m just going to say this once loudly for those in the back: if your “marketing budget is tiny”, that should come as no surprise, my friend. It’s you who set the budget.

All small businesses have a hierarchy of costs they need to meet, and if they’ve chosen to leave nothing to pay those people they profess to care for so much, then that’s down to the business owner. Does their printer get paid in goodwill or “exposure?” Do they approach the packaging manufacturers with a big smile and an offer to wash the car in return for some really nice kraft envelopes? Do they call their internet provider and offer to send a selfie of their tits in return for a years free hosting? In a capitalist economy, a business has to make decisions about priorities, and if there are people who will work for free, then they are going to get exploited. I mean I don’t think the nice lady who runs the business is rubbing her hands and cackling evilly, but absence of bad intentions doesn’t mean that the outcome is OK. It’s not.

I know it’s hard setting up a new business, and of course we form relationships on Instagram. I’ve had kind people help me out with my little business (and yes I do cackle and rub my hands when I do the accounts, btw) and I’ve helped friends out. But my rule of thumb is, once a business is turning a profit, that’s when it can afford to pay for its marketing.

The E Word

Now let’s get to the nitty gritty of this not so itty bitty blog and talk about elitism and privilege in the sewing community. Although this piece was prompted by Kate’s blog, the ideas that I’m concerned about are rife throughout sewing Instagram/Facebook, particularly on the Fold Line group.

Having argued the case on behalf of the poor impoverished sewing companies who can afford to pay everyone else in their supply chain, except the people they want to use for marketing (that’s you, by the way), Kate ends with the cheery closing statement:

“In the absence of any consensus on cash payment, I think we have to decide what’s right for our own situation. And whether it’s something we are happy to be involved in it. No right or wrong!”

This is absolutely fine if you’re in a comfortable enough position to be able to “decide” whether you want to get paid or not. Reading Kate’s article, it seems that she is able to take the decision to work unpaid on a select number of projects throughout the year. This is a luxury that many people don’t have.

Let me give you an example. My friend, like so many of us, is a self employed craft hustler who has a number of small enterprises, one of which is her super active Instagram account with 10K followers and growing. She posts multiple times daily and takes posed, staged photos for her grid that net her a massive rate of engagement. My pal, let’s call her Daisy, told me that a brand had asked her to feature something – gratis, naturally –  and in the act of asking had included the passive-aggressive “jokey” qualifier “unless you’re too big for us now?”

I must point out that I really dislike the fake “friendliness” behind all this; sewing businesses aren’t your friends, although that is not to say that they might not be lovely people. But I’d refer you to this excellent blog by Roisin Muldoon, aka Dolly Clackett, who makes this point better than I can.

No, what the business is really saying here is, I used to live on the same road as Reg Dwight and I want him to come and sing at my club, but now he’s Elton John why should I pay Elton John’s prices? The answer of course is: because you will sell more tickets/patterns/fabric with Elt slash Daisy’s face at the helm, otherwise you wouldn’t be asking them, you’d be asking the Elvis impersonator with the hip replacement/Billie Newbie with the eighty followers to promote your product.

In Kate’s happy little world of rainbows and free choice where no one needs to work to earn a crust and we can all do as we please (I must remember to ask her for directions on how to get there), of course Daisy could have turned down this insulting offer. And the unhappy truth is, there is so much wealth and privilege in the sewing community that the business won’t have to look far to find someone willing to do the job happily for free. Of course, this leaves my mate out in the cold, with a faint slur on her like she’s too big for her boots.

The Way Forward

But believe it or not, there are positive payment models out there that reward crafters and sewists for our labours. And as someone who thinks capitalism is a terrible economic solution, I’m surprised to say that some of these are pretty good too – especially the ones involving tech.

Before being struck down by a chronic illness flare eighteen months ago, I was an active YouTuber and a member of a brilliant Facebook group called the Sewing Vlogger Support Group. There are lots of vloggers in the group at all stages of our journeys, and when we reach a certain stage most vloggers have to have difficult conversations with businesses about collaborations. As artists and creators there will always be a point that we go from actively learning/training (when people are often happy to work for free) to seeking a fee for our work, and that can be a difficult pivot but one that we need to make. Smiles don’t put petrol in the car or pay for the Friday big shop.

I feel like as a predominantly female group, that pivot point takes longer to come about. Men would be putting their foot down much earlier in the proceedings, and, research shows, asking for a helluva lot more dollar in return for their efforts, too.

This is something that YouTube and Google (the advertising parent) understand, which is why when you reach a large enough profile to monetise, a lovely impersonal algorithm pays you per ad view/click, which then accrues into a monthly payment. Like all of these payments, they can be insignificant if you have few followers, but for those who really take to vlogging and build their audiences, it can be a realistic way of making a living.

On a deeply personal level, our community understands how much work we put into creating content, too. Kofi became popular in the UK as a simpler and cheaper version of Patreon, the idea being that your fans or subscribers could buy you a cup of coffee (the suggested donation being £3) up to an unlimited amount, without the platform taking a fee. Bloggers can set goals that they are saving for (I saved for lights, and then for a new video camera) so that donors know what they are giving towards. Vlogging can build a very personal relationship and it’s a great way for viewers to be able to connect with content creators and say thanks.

I also want to mention the model of affiliate links used by pattern companies like Ellie & Mac, which I feel is a lot fairer way of rewarding promoters. Smaller accounts who work hard and push the product to their followers will have their work rewarded and large accounts who work full time on their social media and spend hours on their images and posts are also rewarded accordingly.

So, there are many fair opportunities for payment. The community recognises it, many testers recognise it, it feels like the people who don’t recognise it are small businesses who don’t want to change their convenient and lucrative advertising model, and an elite of sewists who are able to afford to work for free.