Someone has the job of providing enticing little tags or slogans to advertise Simplicity’s sewing patterns. Someone else has the job of approving those tags. Or not. Apparently quite a few of these someones are narrowly clued.
Someone asked, How shall we present pattern 2154, the Misses’ & Miss Petite 1960s Vintage Suit? It gives patterns for blouse, skirt, jacket, and knit cardigan. (Alas, no pattern for the pillbox hat. But if I were going to wear a pillbox it wouldn’t be white. If you would, wow. I respect that.)
In Britain they answered with the weak but I think inoffensive slogan “Be Inspired by the Sewing Bee.”
Oh hai.
By the way, see Scruffy Badger Time for a comparisons of the knit (meaning made from knit fabric, not knitted by you) cardigans in Simplicity’s 2154 and McCalls 6708.
USA Simplicity came up with a far timelier connection to a current award-winning talking picture. USA for the win, right?
That motion picture was Hidden Figures. The ad showed a model wearing clothes from their pattern alongside the movie’s poster, showing three women striding forward in stylish outfits in what is now retro fashion.
The model is a white woman. The women in the story, on the poster, are African-American. I haven’t yet seen the movie, and I haven’t read the book, because I’m way down on the library’s waiting list. Because lots of people want to read it.
NASA computer Christine Richie getting award. Nice sweater set. Too smart to wear a white pillbox.
But I know it’s about a group of little-known mathematicians, African-American women, who calculated trajectories for space exploration and the Apollo 11 moon landing. They worked at West Area Computers at the Langley Research Center in Hampton Virginia. In a segregated facility. Jim Crow, that’s why.
Although my father was a mathematician, I had never heard of these women (or the women who did similar work at JPL, for that matter). Hardly anyone had heard of them. That’s a big part of the story, and is why it’s called Hidden Figures. “Meet the women you don’t know, behind the mission you do,” is the movie’s slogan. Right there on the poster.
People noted the obnoxiousness of using a movie about black women who worked in obscurity to promote fashion with a white model. On Facebook, they asked about this.
Oh no, criticism. Simplicity craftily took the images off Instagram. They took the image and subsequent comments off Facebook. All fixed!
No?
See “Diary of a Sewing Fanatic” for commentary. I had not heard the term “sewist” before, but I like it better than “seamstress” or “tailor” – the one being gender-based, the other associated with sewing as an occupation.
Unable to bury their mistake, Simplicity put out a belated apology.
Dear Facebook Friends,
On Friday, Simplicity’s Facebook post created quite an outpouring of opinion. We were focused on promoting vintage fashion and in hindsight understand and respect the comments from our friends. We are truly sorry for any misunderstandings-basically we did not see beyond the fashion and we blew it! Please know that we will be more mindful in the future of our posts and Happy Sewing!
BRRR it’s cold outside!
Many were pleased to get it, but we don’t think it’s a very good apology. As is so often the case with mealymouthed text, if you weren’t following the story, you wouldn’t be able to tell what it was about. They do not name what they did
Birmingham jail.
Apparently they blew it! Somehow. By focusing on promoting vintage fashion. What could it have been? Something about a zoot suit? Did it reference Hammer pants? Were there leg-o-mutton sleeves involved? Or no, NO, please say there weren’t codpieces.
There is also minimizing. The phrase “quite an outpouring of opinion” belittles the intelligent commentary made. They might as well have said their post created “quite a tempest in a teapot.” And “misunderstandings” is annoyingly vague. Who misunderstood what? Is it their misunderstanding of the obnoxiousness of their ad, or is the misunderstanding of readers who fail to grasp the pureheartedness of Simplicity employees who focus on fashion, fashion, and retro fashion? (I have a suspicion it got changed midstream as a even-more-defensive draft was revised.)
They say they’ll do better – that’s good. I do think they’ll pay more attention.
Then – huh? “BRRR it’s cold outside!” What? Wacky whimsical change of subject!
If it’s so COLD, maybe someone figured it’s time to COVER UP.
(Thanks to Candy Clouston and Samira Tu’Ala for the tip!)
Who is this Candy Clausted? Does Samira have another sister-in-law who reads SorryWatch?
Whoops. That was my typo! Will fix at once. Sorry to get that wrong — thanks for pointing it out.
But actually, you should meet Candy Clausted — I think you’d have a lot in common.
Wow. If this wasn’t so stupid and so painfully common I might be moved to multi-syllabic swearing. But – meh. Just pig-ignorant business as usual with a wacky subject change.
Brrr, indeed.