Yet, the t-shirt I'm wearing designed, hand-printed, and sold in Oakland was "assembled in Honduras" of US fibers, just like many of the shirts one might find in one of those Big Boxes.
Is this local?
And is it even possible, in our now global market place, to run a truly local company with the means of production and distribution all in one locale?
Is going local a modern myth?
"I don't think it's possible to run a totally local apparel company," Oaklandish CEO Angela Tsay wrote in an email. "The cotton would need to be grown here, the fabric dyed here (would the dyes have to be made locally?), and so on."
She brings up a valid observation: How much of a company needs be local for it to be officially "local"? Does Oaklandish need to gather cotton from Oakland? Does Oakland even have a climate that could grow cotton? Where would they grow it by the ball park? (I don't think the Raider Nation would be happy with this). Is this even possible let alone profitable to be a 100% local business?
Despite practical constraints, Tsay says that "we do think local procurement and production whenever possible," pointing out that they use local seamstresses for some work, and use garments, when economically viable, from San Francisco and Los Angeles. Tsay would like more production in Oakland, but doesn't "think there is any local plant that could do this right now." Oaklandish has a "pipedream" of opening its own Oakland-based garment factory, but that too, is "years down the road."
While Oaklandish wants to go more local, and keep more of the means of production in Oakland, Tsay isn't "sure that the market will bear it." My shirt, she explains, is one of the more "straightforward" garments, and thus, they use assemblers in Honduras and Mexico to sell them at a "lower pricepoint." (The shirts are already $28 bucks). Much higher, and people will stop buying, as was the case when they tried to sell organic shirts, and "people wouldn't pay the extra couple dollars." Much higher, in other words, and this local business like all businesses isn't going to be able to stay in business, especially in an economy where people feel pinched. Tsay, CEO of a company which promotes "Local Love," seems uncertain that her customers will pay more for a more local product: "We'll see if people will really put their money where their localvore mouths are."
And while being a fundamentalist localvore who will only buy products
produced and sold in a 10 mile radius
may be impossible, perhaps that's not the point. Going local isn't just about where your
products are from, and who made them it's not just another consumer
choice. Rather, going local is
fundamentally about nostalgia, about regaining a sense of community lost, the
human connection we no longer feel or maybe never felt as we live, work,
and shop in an increasingly anonymous, isolated society. Going local is about building
community, about building a more personal, humane culture. Let's hope this can be a reality.
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