New! Victoria's Secret Weapon Line
QUIT! (www.quitPalestine.org), of Estee Slaughter fame, launched its new Victoria's Secret Weapon campaign yesterday, on a wet Saturday afternoon at San Francisco Center, the hideous megamall in San Francisco. The Shop Israel Bay Area site clued us in that "Most of the cotton bras in Victoria's Secret and some of the cotton panties in Victoria's Secrets are made by Delta Galil Industries." Delta Galil is Israel's largest textile manufacturer, helped to write its free trade agreement with Egypt, has been criticized by Sweatshop Watch for its exploitation of Arab workers, and in recent years has pioneered globalization by moving a lot of its operations to lower-wage countries such as Jordan, Turkey, Central America, Thailand, and Romania.
We thought it would be good if shoppers at Victoria's Secret had this information and we made a spectacular (if I, the designer, do say so myself) little full-color catalogue, available by download at www.quitpalestine.org.
Yesterday's action was planned as a fashion show outside the large Victoria's Secret store in the heart of the Union Square shopping district. However, an ill-timed rainstorm drove us inside, to the newly remodeled store inside the twin shopping center that houses Bloomingdales on one side and Nordstrom's on the other, with a host of other overpriced and overcrowded boutiques in between.
Some of us decided to do some research by attending a lesbian lingerie fashion show hosted by Nordstrom's earlier that afternoon. Yup, that's right. A lesbian lingerie show at Nordstrom's. It was everything we feared, and more, complete with very thin models who looked as totally bored as any human beings you've ever seen. So we were already in kind of a bad mood by the time we got our mass of props and costumes up into the lounge area outside VS.
We were there longer than one might have thought. It took us probably 15 minutes to set up and maybe 10 to get kicked out. During that time we ran through our entire ensemble three times (we only have four products right now - the Push-Em-Out Bra (endorsed from the grave by "there-are-no-Palestinians" Golda Meir), the Razor Wire Bra (the latest in apartheid technology), the Total Control Total Body Shaper (prime minister Olmert's favorite) and the bulletproof Secret Armor set, perfect for soldier girls from Nablus to Baghdad). In that short time, our leafleters handed out about 50 catalogues.
Well I woke up this morning with the sun streaming in my window and in an unusual fit of somethingness, instead of sitting around being annoyed, I grabbed about 200 brochures and headed down to the Union Square store. I got there about 12:50 and started handing out brochures. The first group of girls I gave them to went into the store and immediately started reading them. The salesgirls came over and they read them too. Pretty soon one of them came out and said, "I know you all (not sure who you "all" was meant to be) don't have a permit to hand these out here."
I said I knew "we" did not need a permit to hand them out.
She said, "Well I know you were at the mall yesterday, so I'm giving you a heads up that I'm going to call the cops."
I said it was very different to be in a mall than to be on a public sidewalk and that she should feel free to call the cops who would tell her I had a right to hand out leaflets on the sidewalk in front of her store. I also mentioned that I didn't think I was hurting anything. She said "It's disruptive." I said that I didn't think it was, but she might let her management know that this issue was coming up and they might want to stop using Delta Galil, because we have no problem with them or their store (well, except the objectification of women's bodies and the promotion of anorexia in their advertising, but hey ...). She said they had had "problems" before and been told that they could stop people from leafleting in front of their store. I said I was sure they had been told that they could stop people from doing it on their property but not on the public part of the sidewalk. She said she expected "we" had a lot more people coming. I didn't disillusion her.
She went back inside and I kept giving out literature - a lot of people took it, some didn't, many who did read the whole thing immediately, most did not give it back and none threw it on the ground. A few men chose to stay outside reading it while their womenfolk went in to shop.
A little while later, a guy showed up in what seemed to be either an old-fashioned doorman's uniform or the kind of thing Salvation Army guys wear to ring bells and ask for money. The saleswoman went to talk to him and then he came over and I saw that the tag on his sleeve said "SF Information." I guess he's some kind of private security hired by the Union Square businesses. He asked if I would do him a "favor" and not stand in front of the door. I said I wasn't standing in front of the door. In fact, I was being a lot more in the way than I would have been if I had not been trying religiously to stay off of their property, because they have very wide awnings and my understanding is that anything under an awning is probably considered their property. So I had to kind of stand in the middle of the people walking, rather than being nicely out of the way like the guy standing on a milk crate and leaning against their store asking for money, who they apparently did not see as causing any kind of problem at all.
I have to admit, I didn't do such a great job identifying who was actually going into the store, because -- what can I say? you just wouldn't believe it. So after a while I just started giving them to anyone who looked like they MIGHT go there, who looked at me and was interested. Which was a lot of people.
By the time the lone policeman showed up, about 1:30, I had one brochure left. He asked if I was the one they complained about. I said I guessed so. He asked what I was doing, I said handing out leaflets. He asked if I was blocking anything. I didn't point out that it would be pretty hard for one woman to block a 100-foot storefront with three entrances. I just said no. He asked if I was asking for money. I thought that was pretty funny, since (1) who would give me any, and (2) they didn't seem to care about the guy who actually was asking for money. But I said no. He said, "Okay, I'm going to go tell her what you're doing." Like she couldn't tell what I was doing. As soon as he went inside, I gave away my last brochure and figured there was no reason to wait around.
I'm working on a great website for this campaign, but you can check out some preliminary materials at http://www.quitpalestine.org/actions/victoria/vsindex.html.
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katrap40) wrote,
