Episode 253: How (and why) I worked in fast fashion, part 1

Last Saturday I was sitting at the kitchen table with Dustin, drinking coffee and getting ready to go out to run a ton of pre-winter storm errands.  And then I watched the video of Alex Pretti being murdered by ICE agents in Minneapolis. As I watched, I just started sobbing uncontrollably.  And this proceeded to happen to me over and over again for the next few days. It was like I could no longer hold in the sheer level of grief, rage, and terror that I have been feeling consistently for more than a year.  

On Sunday, I was supposed to be working on an episode of Clotheshorse…but I just couldn’t do it. I could not stop crying at random intervals.  I knew that anything I put out into the world at that moment would not be beneficial to anyone.  I want to be strong and hopeful for all of you.

I’m still working on coping with everything around me.  

If you’re feeling this sense of overwhelming doom right now, you are not alone. 

Leaning into doom and just giving up feels easy.  We don’t need to take any action. We can carry on as usual until…the end?  And if we assume the worst outcome for every situation, we save ourselves from disappointment. I definitely do this.  My motto has always been “assume the worst, be pleasantly surprised when the outcome is slightly better.” It feels safe, protecting me from the agony of disappointment.

We are hardwired to default to doomerism. Seriously, it’s a part of our evolutionary psychology. If we believe that there will always be five saber-toothed tigers outside our cave (no matter what we do), we’re more likely to survive because we will adapt to never leaving the cave. It gives us a sense of predictability in an unpredictable world. But there is no cozy cave for us right now.  We have to work together to chase those predators away.

I work hard to stave off the doomerism because I KNOW that we need to take action if anything will change.  And these days, staying hopeful requires a lot of effort.  But I also know that when we give up, the worst case scenario becomes a reality.  And we normalize the worst things by discussing them as an unavoidable fate. 

A few days ago, we received more than a foot of snow at my home in Lancaster County.  Our house—which does not have central heat—is cold and drafty, but cozier than the sub-freezing temperatures outside.  I’ve been feeling trapped and claustrophobic.  Yesterday, I noticed how my raised garden beds had disappeared, buried in ice and snow.  A wave of melancholy swept over me.  It felt like it would always be winter, that there would always be snow covering everything, and that it would never again be warm enough to spend the afternoon outside, harvesting vegetables and filling the bird feeders.  I would have to accept this grim fate.

But then I shook myself out of it.  For one, yes, winter is long, but not endless.  Spring is just a few months away, followed by summer.  The snow will melt.  The leaves will return to the trees.  New birds will arrive in the yard.  I will be able to spend the afternoon outside doing any number of chores.  And like winter, the bad times never last forever.  Good times follow.  But unlike winter, how long the bad times last depends on us.  The longevity and “goodness” of the good times requires work from us.

Because while the snow will melt and the barn swallows will return to my yard in spring, whether or not I have vegetables to harvest depends on me.  I have to do the work of composting, raking, planting, weeding, and watering to make the garden grow.  The end result of the garden is directly related to the care and work I put into cultivating it.

What happens next is dependent on all of us.  We can do the work, protect our neighbors, and fight the systems and people that seek to destroy and doom us.   We  can connect with and care for our communities. We can call our Senators. We can speak out loudly and proudly to anyone who will listen.  

We are the warm light of hope in a cold winter of doom.

It was 2002. Social media didn’t exist yet (but Friendster was just around the corner).  George W. Bush was President of the United States.  The internet was out there, but internet access was pretty expensive.  I was about to get my first cell phone–a flip phone.  My favorite musicians at that moment were Elliott Smith, Belle + Sebastian, and Mos Def.

Portland, Oregon seemed like the right place to start over.

There was something about the snow capped mountains, the trees bigger than any I had seen before, and even the way the air smelled that made me feel like this was a place that was alive with possibility. It was so different from any place I had ever experienced. Lava was churning under Mount Hood. Mount St. Helens occasionally filled the sky with steam. The forests felt prehistoric with enormous ferns and constant mist in the air. Everything was living and growing. It seemed that just existing in that environment would make me feel alive again.

This was the place where I could get better. My heart and brain would heal. I would recover from the events of the last year and a half, when every vision of my future had been turned upside down and then shattered.

I didn’t believe in love at first sight until I met Ryan.

I was dating his friend Andy, but it was just a fun thing that I did not think would last very long. When he told me he had invited a friend out with us one night, I didn’t think anything about it. In fact, I invited my roommate along as a weird kind of double date. When I opened the door to let Ryan in, well, I can’t explain what happened. But I was struck with this sense of heat and dizziness that I still cannot explain. There was just something about him that set off explosions in my brain.

I loved Ryan in a way that you could only love someone when you are very young, when every feeling is so huge, you only have the space to feel one thing at a time. And when things were good between us, I was the happiest I had ever been. When things were bad, I wondered how I could continue living in such pain.

And then I was pregnant.

When I discovered I was pregnant, it felt like a sign that he really was the one and only for me. My whole life I had been told I would never give birth to a child because cancer had rendered me infertile. And I was okay with that. Having kids never felt like a dream to me and I reasoned that I would adopt children if I changed my mind.

But being pregnant was….wow, shocking but also…amazing? Like I was going to have a child with the most magical and brilliant person I have ever met? But if there is one thing life has continued to teach me over and over again…the good times always end. Fortunately the bad times always end, too.

The magic ended abruptly.

Decades later I still struggle to share that experience with words, so I’ll just say this: Ryan died, just a few months before our child was born. Everything was gone all at once. I felt as if I could not see or hear or think anything beyond a raw sense of pain. I couldn’t eat or sleep. I left my life behind to move home with my abusive and manipulative mother while I tried to figure out what would happen next.

I knew that staying in Pennsylvania with my mom was not a good long term solution. It was terrible for my mental health. I knew there would be no opportunities for me. And I knew being a good parent meant taking my child somewhere where we could thrive together.

By the time I stepped off that plane from Baltimore to Portland, I could only think of two decisions I had every fully made on my own: becoming a parent and moving to Portland. Just about every other change in my life had been a matter of survival, not choice.

I grew up poor in a very chaotic and abusive home. I changed schools constantly. There were always new stepfathers, new houses (really: apartments and trailers), and new arrangements. Obviously these were not my decisions. And I longed to be a grown up, when all of the choices would be mine. But I reached adulthood, only to find that the options are few and far between when you come from nothing. The world chooses for you.

That made moving to Portland a big deal for me. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it was my move to make. When there is no safety net, no safe place to call home…relocating thousands of miles to a place where you barely know anyone feels no less risky than moving one town over.

We moved to Portland with a few hundred dollars.

It was beautiful and amazingly cheap (for living in a city). I didn’t mind the months of rain because the air felt so lush and verdant, even in the winter. We spent our days walking around the city, visiting the library to check out more and more books. And I applied for job after job.

But eight months later, I still didn’t have a job. Everyone had the same experience as me. But I had no connections. Baristas and retail associates watched me turn in my application with a toddler in my backpack and I could see already that their minds were made up. Why would they hire someone with a kid? I was selling my books and clothes to pay rent and buy groceries. I found myself in an abusive relationship with a man who provided some financial assistance. He likened me to a pair of “slightly irregular” designer pants at Ross.  Like the unflawed pants, he couldn’t afford me until I was damaged (aka a single parent). He once didn’t speak to me for a week because I had gotten bangs. Yeah, that seems normal and healthy, right?

And then…I got a part time seasonal sales associate job at Urban Outfitters.

I swear the day I got the call offering me the job—part time, temporary, and minimum wage—I felt as if the clouds had finally parted and the sun was shining just for me. WE WERE GOING TO SURVIVE.

On my first day (which was also my birthday), the manager parked me at a cart at the fitting rooms, where I helped customers try on clothing all day. Count the items in and out of the rooms. Check the rooms for tags. Rehang and fold items.

I did this for twelve hours under a freezing air conditioning vent because the managers forgot I was there. And when they finally sent me home apologizing for forgetting about me, I was ecstatic. I had just made about $90, which was the most money I had seen in years. This job would not have been my “first choice,” but it’s not like there were any other options on the list.

I showed up for work everyday. I worked hard. I tried to forget that the company made us feel like thieves, searching our bags and pockets every time we left the store. We had to ask a manager to let us in and out of the bathroom, just in case our plans to steal involved the toilet. I unpacked plastic shoes wrapped in plastic that smelled like Cancer: the fragrance. I folded and hung and straightened and worked so fucking hard every day, for just over minimum wage.

Eventually I became a manager. And while the insurance and consistent paycheck were great, the hours were horrible. As a salaried employee I was expected to be at the store as long as necessary, usually 9-10 hours each day, but often more like 12. And I was paying for childcare for those hours, so I was kinda just as broke as I was before I was a manager. I couldn’t afford the bus, much less a car, so I was transporting my kid and our groceries around town on my bike. I was writing checks “creatively” to pay for diapers and food before payday when my account was empty.

Everything felt so tenuous…we were only one stroke of bad luck away from homelessness. That said…I do consider this one of the happiest times of my life. I had great friends and did cool creative things. I loved living in Portland.  For a person who has spent most of my life feeling lonely, it was the first time I felt like I wasn’t completely on my own in the world. I had people who cared about me, would show up when needed.  It was my chosen family. 

The store had a very important visit from executives from the Home Office. This was a rarity in the Pacific Northwest, because we were so far away from the headquarters in Philadelphia, PA. We spent weeks cleaning and organizing, dressing and redressing the mannequins. And when the day arrived, I gave a walkthrough of the women’s department to these executives, as was expected. I talked about what customers requested most often, where I thought we had an opportunity to expand on certain ideas, and how we could merchandise those ideas. Just doing my job. But at the end of the walkthrough, one of the executives asked me “How would you like to move to Philadelphia to be a buyer?”

I laughed because it seemed unlikely. And also, wtf was a buyer?! But a week later, I was flying across the country for an interview.

For the interview, I wore a thrifted Boy Scout shirt, a brown corduroy jumper from the sale section at Urban Outfitters, and the green cowboy boots that I had worn every single day for years.

I was interviewed by at least half a dozen people that day. I knew nothing about “fashion” but I knew that I loved clothes and style. When someone asked me my favorite designer, I said “Marc Jacobs,” because that was the only name that came to mind. Luxury brands and high fashion were not part of my life. My friends and I were all super stylish, but our inspiration came from thrifting, vintage, old movies and magazines, and our favorite bands. The clothes we wore were a creative expression, not a commodity.

I also just want to take a moment here to talk about the world at the time that I had this interview: MySpace was the most prevalent social media platform. Facebook existed, but I didn’t know a thing about it.  It was too new.  I generally only had access to the internet if I took my laptop (one of the old white plastic Macbooks) to the coffee shop or the library.  I did that primarily for checking email or eBay. I read a lot of books and magazines.  I wasn’t getting my inspiration or information from the internet. I DID have a phone that took photos at this point, but you still couldn’t really send photos to someone, so it was kinda silly.  However, I carried a little Canon digital camera with me everywhere I went.  I also finally had an iPod (thanks to my Dad).  My favorite bands/musicians at that point were J Dilla and Holly Golightly.

TBH I assumed I would not get the job because I wasn’t “fashion” enough, so I was very surprised when I received an offer.

I took the job because it felt like a chance to reach some level of financial security and give my child a nice life.

My first choice would have been to stay in Portland, but once again, survival was the priority. Things I learned immediately included:

• What a buyer does (lots of spreadsheets, applied mathematics, critical thinking, presentations, creative problem solving)…it turned out I was really good at all of those things.

• Most of my coworkers came from highly privileged backgrounds and definitely thought that store employees (including me) were kinda stupid and unimportant.

• Buying didn’t pay well. My first job paid $4000/year more than I was being paid in Portland. This meant things were very rough for the first few years. I was eating a lot of canned food from the Dollar Tree. Over time, I made more money, but I wasn’t paid a living wage for someone with a child until I became a Senior Buyer years later at Nasty Gal.

Did I like my job?

Yes and…no. By then I had come to accept that work was something we did to survive, not something we did for pleasure. I didn’t mind the actual work part of it (I love a calculator and some data to dissect), but the social aspects of it were difficult. I felt like an outsider as a low income single parent. I had never been skiing or on family vacations to Europe. I had never even been to Disney World (still haven’t), which always seemed like THE vacation for happy middle class families. I could not afford the clothes my company sold, so I was usually thrifting or going to Forever 21. I had imperfect teeth and my mom lived in a trailer park. I was never going to be thin or pretty enough to truly get ahead.

I told myself that my work would stand for itself, but I know that was only 50% true. I was permanently anxious. My eating disorder spiraled for years, as I created more and more rules about when and how I could eat in an effort to feel like I had control over something in my life.

Yes, I worked with some horrible people who seemed to have watched The Devil Wears Prada and thought it was an educational HR video on how to behave in the workplace. I saw women making other women cry in meetings just about every day.

But also…I worked with some cool, smart, and hyper talented people, who are still my friends to this day! And over the years of my career in fast fashion, I continued to meet more amazing and brilliant people.

Still, that took time. For the first six months at my job, no one talked to me. Not even my boss. She just emailed me all day from ten feet away. I ate lunch alone, reading a book in the big URBN cafeteria. Slowly friendships formed, mostly with the guys who worked in the mailroom. Through them, I met cool people who worked for other brands on the campus. And things got better, less lonely. I still pined away for my friends and life in Portland, but it hurt a little bit less.

I would end up working in Philly for about five years, before returning to Portland (continuing to work for Urban Outfitters in a different capacity).  Ultimately I worked for Urban for 10 years, the longest I have worked anywhere in my adult life.  And ten years is a rarity in fashion, because you have to jump around from company to company if you want to be promoted and make more money.  If I could travel back in time and tell my young self that, I would. Although…I would have a lot of other stuff to tell myself, too…like don’t date someone who gives you the silent treatment over a hairstyle.

Why did I stay? Fear? Low self esteem? Both I guess. I was working as a buyer for Urban Outfitters when the recession began.  And it felt super scary to leave, even if a year later, my peers were going to other companies and instantly getting a $20K raise.

But also…when you work in fashion (and I’m sure other industries, too), there is always this undercurrent of “you’re so lucky to be here because there are thousands of girls lined up waiting to take your place.” It’s something that has been said to me by executives throughout my career, whether as a warning to ME, or as motivation to “manage out” someone who wasn’t performing.  “This is someone’s dream job.”

Well, no one was luckier than me to be there. I was from the trailer park, with a teen mom. I didn’t have connections.  I hadn’t gone to fashion school.  I was a single parent who did most of my household shopping at thrift stores and dollar stores. Also,  I was kinda funny looking and no matter how much I starved myself, I was never going to be beautiful and thin.  And sadly…in fashion jobs, your skills and work ethic are always secondary to your appearance.  So who else would want to hire me? It felt safer to just stay at Urban Outfitters, even if being there felt increasingly destructive.

By the time I left Urban Outfitters, I had an iphone and an Instagram account. Spotify, Tumblr, Pinterest,  and Linkedin.  I had Netflix–but I’m pretty sure it was still only DVDs in the mail at that point.  None of these things existed when I started.  

And through that decade–a significant chunk of my adult life–I saw so much weird, bad, possibly illegal stuff happen, that it could fill books and books.  There was the glitter gun Christmas ornament scandal. Ghettoply. The blog “Urban Counterfeiters.” So many artists and brands knocked off over and over again. A buyer pushed into quitting because she had just been diagnosed with cancer.  An entire War and Peace sized volume of employee abuses (just a reminder that URBN did not have an HR department until just a few years ago).  If you feel like I’m missing things from this list…well, I’m sure I am.  It was like that time went so fast, that it’s difficult to slow it down so I can remember it all.

Let’s get this section started by answering some questions I get quite often:

Did I know that I was working in fast fashion?

I’m not sure if Urban Outfitters was exactly fast fashion (yet) when I started working as a buyer.  Yes, we delivered new items to stores every month, but it was a reasonable number. Things stayed at full price for months (usually 3-6 months) before going on sale. And this was BEFORE the recession made every brand adopt the fast fashion model.

The workload was doable. At the same time, we were always selling stuff at a high markup that was not good quality. But the markup would increase as the quality declined over the next 15 years.

Also, I was surrounded by this sort of “corporate hype” that what we were doing at Urban Outfitters was cooler and more important than other big chain/brand out there. And while I’m pretty resistant to that kind of corporate culture, I definitely DID think UO was different from Forever 21.

By now you have seen many people use the analogy of the frog in a boiling pot of water to describe many different scenarios, including climate change and the rise of fascism.

Basically the water gets warm so slowly that the frog doesn’t notice and then boils to death.

It turns out that is an urban myth, but to use that analogy anyway…the fast fashion-ization of an entire industry didn’t happen overnight. It happened so gradually that I could only see that I was a buyer in fast fashion in hindsight.

The real change began in 2008, with the global financial crisis that spurred a recession. Urban Outfitters anticipated decreasing sales, but the executives felt we could protect stock prices (and keep shareholders happy) by increasing the profitability of the things we sold. So we were required to reach out to every vendor and ask for a blanket 15% discount on our orders. That was a really fun day (jk). The company also cut costs by putting a freeze on raises and promotions. Our benefits were also cut and our health insurance became more expensive. And you know what? The company had a year of record profit.

The workload increased. We bought more and more different styles and jammed the stores (and our website) with more and more new products. I was given more categories to manage (sold to me as a “great opportunity”) without a raise or change in title. When coworkers left, a replacement was not hired. Rather, their work was given to the rest of the team.

One day a coworker whispered to me, “Do you ever stay awake at night thinking about how all of this stuff that we buy is just going to end up in the landfill?” We locked eyes, sharing our sadness. And then I nervously laughed, “we can never talk about this in the office again.”

But the fact was, more and more often I found myself struggling with the suspicion that we were doing something bad. All of the waste that would clog the landfills. All of the resources being used to create that near-future waste. And what about the way the company treated all of the people who made and sold that near-future waste?

I had to jam those thoughts to the back corner of my brain in order to get up and work another day. Without this job I had nothing. I would end up in the trailer park with my mom, growing more bitter and hateful with each passing day.

Now is a good time to address another question I receive quite frequently: why didn’t I go work for a “nicer” clothing company? Maybe something more high end (and in theory, more ethical)?

Well, that’s just not how it works in the industry. You could maybe go from Chanel to Urban Outfitters, but you will NEVER go from Urban Outfitters to Chanel.

There is a high level of classism within the industry. So if you are working at a brand with less prestige, you are unlikely to be considered for a job at a company with more prestige. And of course, now I think that is laughable because even luxury brands have adopted the fast fashion model. But that’s just how this industry works.

Eventually I moved on to other companies. My first foray out of the UO bubble was Modcloth. There we launched new items EVERY DAY. Our catalog of styles was virtually infinite, so we went to see vendors every week in order to find more and more new styles to sell.

That said…Modcloth was without a doubt the best employer I have ever had. We had great benefits and the culture was kind and supportive. I was actually excited to go to work every day.

On a personal level, my relationship with my family back home in Pennsylvania was weirder than ever. They seemed to think I was “rich,” so suddenly I was paying my whole extended family’s phone bill. No one would pick me up at the airport when I came home to visit unless I paid them to do so. Meanwhile I was still living paycheck to paycheck. I lived in LA but could not afford a car, but fortunately I have always been a huge fan of public transportation.  But things still felt so tenuous.

How bad was it? Well, Modcloth didn’t provide company credit cards to buyers.  Rather we were supposed to use our own credit cards and get reimbursed (usually pretty fast).  The problem is that during trade show season (February and August)  I generally traveled nonstop to New York, Vegas, and London.  This meant I needed to pay for airline tickets, hotel rooms, meals, any other travel stuff out of my pocket.  I did not even have a credit card at this point. So I would have to use my debit card, meaning it would come directly out of my checking account.  Well, I didn’t have that kind of money.  For my first trade show season, I sold a bunch of my clothes and other stuff on eBay so I could have money to travel for work.  Eventually I DID get a credit card (with like a $500 limit at first), but the financial side of #buyerslife was really hard. Also, in the process of getting a credit card, I discovered that my cousin had been applying for dozens of credit cards and loans in my name (he had stolen some old FAFSA forms from a filing cabinet at my mom’s house).  Fortunately he was really bad at scamming because he never had the right address.  

I stayed at Modcloth for a few years, but things were starting to feel uncertain there, after two rounds of layoffs in under a year. Something was breaking and I was afraid of being caught in it.   I knew I needed to keep moving forward (and up) if I was ever going to be able to send my kid to college.

Fortunately, my best friend had just gotten a job up the street at Nasty Gal.  Unfortunately the interview process there was so shitty and rude.  But this was like 2014, peak Girl Boss, peak Nasty Gal. 

• First, I had been brought in for an interview about six months prior, then completely ghosted. And to be fair, the vibes were not good.  I was interviewed by the original Nasty Gal buyer/first employee, Christina Ferruci. And she seemed incredibly stressed out and unhappy. So I kinda felt like I dodged a bullet.  And while Modcloth was seeming weird lately, at least everyone was nice.
• After my best friend was hired at Nasty Gal  she was like “um, why haven’t you hired my friend, Amanda?” They brought me back in.
• Then made me do TWO different projects because Sheree Waterson wasn’t sure if I had “good” taste because of the previous places I worked.  Um interesting because both of those businesses were much bigger and more successful. But this kinda planted a seed in my brain that I was “lucky to be here” at Nasty Gal, so I didn’t push back on the salary they offered me and I felt like a major imposter for the first six months that i worked there.

On my first day, I sat down at my desk and examined the mountain of sales reports…and I was immediately like HOLY SHIT this business is FUCKED. Categories  had years and years worth of inventory on hand.  That’s a bad thing. Like a healthy business has three months of inventory on hand, meaning enough to fuel three months of sales.  Maybe six months if it’s a slow category. But 3+ years? That’s a disaster.  Soon it became apparent that my best friend and I had been hired to try to fix this situation.  But I didn’t even know where to begin.

And we couldn’t fix it because the executives picked a new strategy every week, never allowed any of these strategies to play out, and expected us to work all day/every day. Sheree Waterson herself said “I like to send out emails on the weekend to see who responds. Because anyone who doesn’t, doesn’t care about their jobs.”  

First we were chasing more expensive product, then nevermind…everyone head off to the Mart for cheaper product.  Now let’s try activewear.  Or Sophia is getting married, so let’s make a wedding collection. Let’s do more t-shirts. Now more dresses. Nothing ever stayed the same for very long

I could tell you wild stories all day. We used to joke about writing a sitcom about working there. It was so ridiculous. By late fall/early winter, when I reached out to Anna Merlan of Jezebel, saying “hey, I’m a senior buyer at Nasty Gal and I want to talk to you about how it really is here,” I was fully pissed off and epically disappointed. 

I was lowkey trapped. Because working in  fashion in LA, you don’t have a lot of great options: Forever 21 (notoriously horrible company to work for that expected a minimum of 12 hours of work each day), BCBG (equally horrible), or Guess (also terrible with sexual harassment added into the mix).  There was Revolve but I had heard weird stories. And Reformation was coming up on the scene, but so far they just seemed notorious for having candidates do merchandising/product projects and then ghosting them.  And years later,  I would have several friends who worked at Reformation who had only the worst things to say about that company, and just how horrible and fast fashion-y it really was

It did suck that everyone on the outside thought Nasty Gal was this super cool, super feminist place to work. Because it just wasn’t.  It was all a lie.  Lots of diet culture, fat shaming, creepy white dudes in leadership, and super high turnover/low pay.  

Beyond the mismanagement and chaos (or maybe BECAUSE of it), there was no work/life balance. Team size was constantly shrinking while we chased down more and more things to buy. We had weekly meetings in a room called (aptly enough) Mean Girls, where we would be torn to shreds by the CEO and her monstrous cronies.

I starved myself in new and innovative ways. I often ate lunch in the bathroom so no one would judge me for eating food. I felt like I had a permanent headache and diarrhea.

Now is a good time to mention something very important: yes, I worked with some terrible people through my career. But I also worked with (and befriended) incredibly talented, super smart people. And I feel so lucky that I had the chance to work alongside them and get to know them. Specifically, I met some of my favorite people in the world while working at Nasty Gal.

There are plenty of amazing people working in fast fashion who feel trapped just like I did.

When I was finally laid off from Nasty Gal because the company was running out of money, I felt relieved. Maybe I could finally figure out something else to do that would be better for me. My friend Kim was laid off about five minutes after I was, so my new-ish boyfriend Dustin (!) picked us up from the office and took us out for drinks.

We were free…but scared!

Another good thing had been happening in tandem with my career in fashion: I was using every minute of free time to write. And over the years, I had written pages and pages about my experiences (primarily personal–I didn’t think anyone would be interested in hearing about my job). For about a year in LA (while I was at Modcloth and Nasty Gal), I even published a zine called Sandy with a friend.

I also volunteered every week at a kitten rescue shelter.

The level of joy that I got from writing and volunteering almost (but not quite) cancelled out some of the frustration of my career.

I interviewed for so many different random jobs after Nasty Gal. My thinking was like “hey, I have tons of professional experience and clearly I’m great at problem solving, so why not shift to another industry?”

Every interview went the same way: “Wow, you have a lot of great experience? Why would you leave fashion?”

“Oh, I’m just looking for a new challenge.” That sounded neutral enough. It felt better than “Why wouldn’t I leave fast fashion? I’m caught in an ever escalating whirlpool of work, stress, plastic clothes, and horrible abuse from out-of-touch executives who can’t believe people buy stuff using their phones. I have a constant headache and stomachache. I only let myself eat once a day, partially because I want to be thin enough to get ahead, but partially so I don’t have diarrhea at work.”

No one believed that I would leave the “glamour” of fashion behind and they were quite blunt about that. So I couldn’t escape.

I ended up taking another buying job with a “feminist” fashion brand in the Pacific Northwest.

When I arrived back in Portland, I thought this was my chance to merge my desire for a better world with my professional experience. Sure, this brand sold clothes just like all my other previous employers. But it felt exciting to challenge the status quo of gender and clothing. And while you will never see me in a suit and a button up, I wanted to make the best versions of these for people who wanted them. After all, the fashion industry had been ignoring them forever.

But that job ultimately broke me. It turned out it was just another version of the toxic “girl boss” feminism of Nasty Gal, just wearing pants instead of a leather mini skirt. All the same bullying, chaos, and diet culture. We exploited people’s desire to do good by selling them lots of “fundraiser” t-shirts that didn’t really benefit anyone except the company. We used the same exploitative supply chain that every fast fashion brand used. And we wasted fabric and resources at the same rate.

I accomplished many things there and the business grew exponentially under my product leadership. I AM good at what I do.

But I was miserable. In addition to an incredibly toxic and uncomfortable work place (we didn’t even have real desk chairs, just stools from Ikea), the job did not offer health insurance. Meanwhile, we were allegedly donating all this money to fund women’s healthcare via Planned Parenthood. It made no sense.

And while I had ACA insurance for myself and my kid, when Trump was inaugurated in 2017, rates went through the roof while coverage declined. In one terrible year, both my child and I had serious illnesses that required hospitalization and treatment. I was drowning in medical bills and considering bankruptcy. My job was not paying me enough to get by… I was trapped. If I left, I could not support my family.

I began fantasizing about taking out a big life insurance policy and then jumping off the Burnside Bridge. It seemed like a win-win: my family would be cared for financially, and I wouldn’t have to make another feminist tee ever again.

Writing this has actually been more difficult than I imagined, because it has forced me to revisit so many difficult times. It’s scary to be so transparent about my life. Thank you (again) for giving me the chance to feel safe being vulnerable with all of you.

The recurring theme of how and why I worked in fast fashion? How out of control I felt. How trapped I was. Even though I was at work making big financial decisions every day, it always seemed as if I didn’t get to make decisions when it came to my own life. I think this is a feeling many of you can relate to, no matter where you work. Capitalism is a treadmill and jumping off is rarely an option (unless you have a financial safety net).