← Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty
Clotheshorse with Amanda Lee McCarty
Episode 262: How to "background check" a brand (featuring Quince)
01:39:00
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Welcome to Clothes Horse, the podcast that has been around for six years. Wow, six years. Yeah, it's pretty wild. Like, as I'm recording this today, a few days ago was the six year anniversary of the first episode of Close Horse. And I feel like we've all been through so many changes together over the past six years, especially all of you who have listened from the very beginning. I mean, I moved back and forth across the country multiple times, I changed jobs, I've encountered a lot of cats and so much more. Thank you. Thank you for always being here and showing up and just being a part of this. Anyway, I'm your host, Amanda, and This is episode 262. And in this very special episode, I won't call it a birthday episode. I'll just say it's a very special, very important. It's about time episode. I'm gonna show you. Yes, yes. You. How to background check a brand. What does it mean to background check a brand? Well, don't you worry, I'm going to get into all of that in this episode. But before we jump into that, I just wanted to give you a little update, of course, on Operation Snip Snip. So, you know, I've got some kittens in my spare room. I think by now, you know, I have two sets of kittens in my spare bedroom. Right. So first off, there were Alexis's kittens, who are mega supermodels, all beautiful, fluffy, so personable, hilarious. They are currently running around like maniacs in my bedroom right now getting some morning exercise. And they will be adoptable via pet pantry here in Lancaster in just a few weeks. They're going to be spayed and neutered. They're have their shots, flea treatments, microchipped, dewormed, all the things they're like ready to go and live happy, healthy lives. And I think they're gonna go really, really fast. I'm really so grateful that Pet pantry was able to work with me on this because we also have two other kittens in there in a separate kennel with Alexis. And those are Steve's two little orange kittens that we rescued after she abandoned them. And they look great. I wanna say they must be getting close to being. They probably are four weeks old as of now. So it'll still be a. They're ready to be adopted. But I'm going to tell you, at least one of them is mega fluffy. I can't decide on the other one. But he, the fluffy one, he is going to be so cute. I mean, they both Are I also am just going to tell you that we've been having a lot of just terrifying summer weather here. I'm sure many of you are nodding your head. You're experiencing the same thing. And so we've had all of these just really frightening thunderstorms. At one point there was like our tornado warning thing was going off and we had to go hide in the basement. And last week during one of these storms, I was in the kitchen and I heard kittens crying. I mean, I feel like I'm developing like, I don't know, really special kitten sensing radar or something. And I went outside in the rain. I should not have been out there. And I looked under the back stairs and there were two orange kittens in there along with Steve. So it seems like after Steve had her first set of kittens and ran off, she went somewhere else and secretly had two more. So I haven't seen them since then. But when they emerge, we'll figure out next steps. Which brings me to another kittens story. By the way, I know many of you love the cat talk. Some of you do not and have let me know. So this would be a good chance. If you hate cat talk, maybe fast forward like three more minutes. Okay. And then I'll try to cut out the, you know, wrap up the cat talk for the day. So we live on a farm and as I mentioned before, we rent our house from an Amish guy who bought up just this massive parcel of land after the original farmers passed away a few years ago. And so he owns our, our house, another house, and a series of barns and farmland and woods all around here. I looked it up, I think it was $2.5 million to buy all this land. So we rent the house and across the driveway from us is this rickety barn. It's huge. It's pretty cool, but I mean, it's rickety. And in the first floor, another Amish farmer rents it out and he uses it sort of as like a goat nursery. He has a big goat farm up the hill. So the babies are born down here. When they're big enough, go outside and graze with the rest of their goat friends. It's like a two story barn. Some of our feral cats that live in our colony sort of sleep in there at night. It's where they go during bad weather. Also, more and more of them actually hang out on our porch during bad weather. But it's another place where cats hang out. And I was out in the yard hanging out some laundry to dry and Dustin was Working on our car. And he said, you know, I keep hearing a kitten crying. I can't figure out where it's coming from. So we walked over the perimeter of the barn, and I didn't hear anything. And so I was like, who knows? There's kittens everywhere. I think that we haven't been lucky enough to discover yet. And then the next day, I was up in my office working. Dustin was outside doing something, and he came up and he said, hey, like, I hear this kitten again, and it sounds even more desperate. So I went downstairs, I went outside, I walked around the barn, and I could hear him, but I couldn't see anything. And then when I looked really closely, there was a little tiny black tail sticking out of the wall of the barn. Cause it's this. This barn, like I said, is rickety, okay? It's got holes in the walls. And I said, I think something's bad is going on in there. We gotta figure out a way into this barn. A lot of the doors are nailed shut, but we found. We found a way in. And we discovered this little tiny black kitten who had his front leg stuck between sort of the concrete foundation of the barn and the decaying wood flooring. Like, there was a gap, just enough of there for his little leg to get stuck in there, but not be able to get it back out. So we. We tried carefully to get him. He wasn't coming out. And we were both like, what are we gonna do? And it was really, really hot that day. So we were just sweating anyway. But now we were, like, stress sweating on top of that. You know, if we leave this kid in here, he's going to die for sure. No one can get him out. It's very hot. He's clearly been here for 24 hours now. Like, this is who Dustin heard crying yesterday. We're there trying to figure it out. What can we do? Like, there's no walking away from this situation. And I had this idea, like, what if we could sort of shave away at the wood because it's decaying anyway, Just enough to free his leg. And I don't know, I was thinking, like, we get the dremel, or we could get the cheese grater. We get some sandpaper, something. Just enough to get him out. And Dustin's like, okay, hold on. I'll go look for something in the house. So I sat there petting him, and he was calming down. Dustin comes back with this metal file that's actually been sitting out on the table because I need to file this sharp piece off of my vintage purse that's been, like, catching on my dresses. And it happened to be sitting right there when he came in the house. So he grabbed that right away, and he got down on his knees, and he started shaving away at the wood. And. And a couple minutes later, we got the kitten out. So we brought him in the house. I was like, I don't know. We got it. We got to examine him before we figure out what we're gonna do next. And he couldn't walk. His leg was just flopping around, and I was really worried that it was broken. So, you know, we found a great vet here, very close to where we live that is one of the few vets out here not owned by private equity at this point. So it's gonna be our new vet for all the cats. And they saw the kitten right away, and they x rayed his leg. They were like, he's fine. It's just. He needs to just rest and recover. His leg was super swollen. It was probably from being stuck, maybe a sprain, but he's gonna be okay. They gave him some shots, they gave him some dewormer, and they sent him home with us. And I was like, well, this is our cat now. Like, we are not gonna put him back outside. So he has been living with us now for close to two weeks. When we found him, he was four weeks old. I guess he's getting close to six weeks old now. We named him Conway. He is a very important part of our life. We love him very much. So welcome to the family. A new kitten named Conway. Ah, there's kittens, man. And I'm just gonna tell you, he definitely has siblings out there. We saw the mom. The mom is the one I mentioned in the last episode who's been showing up kind of skinny. I've only gotten this briefest, brief glimpse of these kittens, and then they disappear. But as soon as we can trap them, we'll figure out what's happening there. That said, even though I still have so much trapping and so much spaying and neutering in my future, Hashtag blessed, right? The sale that I have been running on the website for 50% off, all merch to help fund, this whole process is going to actually end at the end of July, Because I am in the process of adding more new product to the website that I don't want to sell on sale right out of the gate. So you have two more weeks until the end of July to use the promo code. The priceisright to get 50% off everything on the site, and then new stuff's going to arrive and the sale is going to be over. Thank you to all of you already who have made purchases, who have donated money. I seriously could not have done this without you. It is such an expensive undertaking. Like, yes, there is the surgery, but there's also the driving back and forth. It's 30 minutes each way to the clinic. There is the food and towels and extra carriers and beds and all kinds of stuff. It has really added up and I couldn't have done it without all of you. So thank you. Thank you for all of your support. So six years ago, as I said, the first episode of Clothes Horse was released, and it was recorded approximately two feet from my bed on a very hot day in Philadelphia. One very unglamorous thing about having an independent podcast is that you can't record anywhere near an air conditioner or a fan because it messes up the audio. So anytime you listen to an episode that was released during the summer or know that I was sweating my ass off while I worked on it, I usually have like three or four beverages lined up for these several hours of recording. Or I do what I'm doing right now, which is I get up super early in the morning for a few mornings in a row until I've been able to record the whole thing and then I can edit it. So, yeah, there's something for me about working on the podcast that, like, if I close my eyes and think about how I feel speaking into this mic, I immediately get the sensation of moist clothing. Not necessarily in a bad way, maybe in a sort of cozy way, that's possible. But like I said, most of the time, I'm literally sweating my ass off. And I mean that literally, because having a podcast has helped me discover just how much sweat my butt can generate. It's really, really impressive. But that's not all I've learned along the way. You know, there's the technical stuff like Photoshop and editing audio. There's emotional stuff like setting Boundari and stopping my people pleasing habit. And then there's all the actual hard knowledge about government regulations and private equity and clothing manufacturing and so much more. And seriously, I don't know how my brain has made space for everything I've learned. But learning is, to me, one of life's simplest and most rewarding joys. And I'm excited that I have this excuse, this motivation to learn new stuff, like, literally every day of my life. It's probably so good for my brain, too. It's Definitely had its ups and downs along the way. I mean, the downs include, you know, death threats from vegans, stalkers harassing me and my friends and my family. There was that whole traumatic experience with remake weird messages from men on the Internet. So many weird, strange things. But the ups, the positive aspects of working on Clothes Horse have far outweighed any of the bad stuff. You know, there was the Clothes Horse jamboree, there were the live shows last fall, and most importantly, they're all of the amazing friends and collaborators I have met over the last six years thanks to our shared passion for a better world. Like, I have made awesome real lifetime friends while working on Clotheshorse. And I'll tell you, I'm so proud of the work that I've done so far. It, of course, has not always been perfect because I've been learning alongside all of you, but both my heart and my mind have grown exponentially over the past six years. Now, one thing you've probably noticed is that there have been less new episodes of the podcast this year. And I'm going to tell you, for about five of the last six years I have been balancing working a full time job to pay my bills with Close Close Horse. An unpaid full time job. And for a long time I made it work. I am a high energy person, I'll tell you that. But I would, you know, work six days a week, usually 10 to 12 hours per day. I only took Saturday off, but I usually ended up working a few hours anyway. I didn't socialize or meet people IRL or binge watch Netflix or really do anything other than work. But this year I knew something had to change. Like it just felt like life was passing by me so fast and all I had to show for it was a lot of podcast episodes that someday people would completely forget. Like, it just didn't feel right. It definitely didn't feel good. And specifically this year I picked up a lot more clients and with all of the TNR and the foster kittens and the everything else going on around me, I started to dread getting out of bed every day because it just meant non stop work until I got to go to sleep again. That's pretty depressing. So I'm giving myself some more space this year to just move a little bit more slowly, just a little bit. And I'm targeting two episodes a month, which when you consider that most episodes are two hours long, I'm kinda. It's kind of like you're getting four anyway. And it gives me time to read for fun. Not Just for a clothes horse to work in my garden, stare into space, whatever I need. I just really need to slow things down or I'm going to end up quitting. To be honest, it's going to be like I'm just so exhausted I can't go on anymore and I don't want that to happen. I can just feel. I can feel the burnout right now. The only days I haven't worked this year were when I had norovirus, which is so depressing to say out loud. I need to change how I live my life and how I care or don't care for myself. So expect less episodes until something changes in my life. But know that I'm just as committed to creating high quality, thoughtful work. So, yeah, as I mentioned, one thing I'm working on as clotheshorse is my people pleasing habit. And to be honest, a lot of the time it is the strangers on the Internet pleasing that was and is wearing me down. Okay, so how far has my people pleasing strangers on the Internet gone? Well, here's an example. A few years ago, a follower on Instagram asked me if there was another place I could share my content because they were trying to stay off social media, but they wanted to see my stuff. So what did I do? I created a Google folder for this person and I uploaded every post for a few months. And of course, you know, I shared this folder with them. And along the way, I actually had to pay extra money to increase my Google Drive storage because some of the posts were videos and they were taking up a lot of space. And I was like, well, fine, fine. Eventually I was going to have to upgrade my storage space. Anyway, months later, I mean, I'm still dutifully putting every single post in this folder. I looked up the folder history and I realized that the person who had requested it had never looked at it even once. And that was actually the moment that I was like, okay, I need to stop trying to please everyone and I need to start drawing some boundaries, like, right now. I always joke that when a person starts a business, their customer service policy is like one sentence, right? But a year later, it's a scroll of paper so long that it rolls down the stairs and out the door and down the street. Because basically what a customer service policy is is boundaries. And for a lot of businesses, boundaries and rules, AKA that customer service policy, are built as things go awry. So it just gets longer and longer, learning the hard way. And I've certainly learned how to set boundaries and stop being a people pleaser. By experiencing all kinds of misadventure and sometimes trauma as close horse. And sometimes it's just exhaustion that makes me learn the lesson. And sometimes, like, I don't know, like, it did hurt my feelings a little bit that I was doing all that work for that person who I don't know personally in real life, I was going the extra mile for this person who was like, oh, I already forgot about it sucks. You know, shame on me for like, I don't know, agreeing to do that in the first place, you know. So one of the boundaries I started setting was I stopped answering DMs on Instagram. I did this like a year or two ago. And it's not because I don't like talking to people, but I was experiencing this issue over and over again, which was that I would feel like I was running out of time every single day, but I wasn't getting everything done that needed to be done. Like, I would start working at 8am and by 8pm I felt like I needed three, maybe four more hours to finish my list for the day. So I could not, and I couldn't get to the bottom of like, what was happening because I felt like I was like at my desk working like the entire day. Like, where was I losing time? So I did something that I always recommend to my clients, you know, who are small business owners who are trying to do a million things at once and often also feel as if they are, you know, running out of time. I spent a week keeping track of how I spent my time every day. Whether it was meetings, responding to emails, making lunch, or. Or spending time on social media. And at the end of the week, naturally, there was a spreadsheet involved. I learned the horrifying truth. I was spending three hours a day answering and responding to comments and DMs on Instagram. Three hours. That's where my three hours that I needed was going. That's 21 hours a week just spent on my phone talking to people. And that probably seems really wild to you, three hours. But if 20 people DM me in one day and I spend five minutes chatting with each person, well, right there's a hundred minutes, more than an hour and a half. And often forget about 20 messages. I was receiving 40 or 50 in a day. And some of these messages were really emotionally difficult. Complaints about thrift stores and resellers, epic stories of trauma, unwelcome advice, weird and completely inappropriate feedback about my appearance. And sometimes people just being straight up trolls. And then of course, lots of messages asking me either where can I buy sustainable underwear? Or is blank brand sustainable? Why or why not? So I stopped responding to DMs and it was a life changer to get those hours back every day. But I felt terrible because I'm a people pleaser and I don't want to disappoint people. And I had to have a sort of come to Jesus with myself about it. Basically, hey, Amanda, you are a person who needs to work, sleep, eat, relax, do laundry, spend time with other humans, clean the house, run errands and so on. So stop trying to make everyone else happy at your own expense. And I don't think that anybody who was sending me messages, complaints, traumatic stories, or asking me for advice about where to buy underwear, I don't think any of those people were like, oh, I'm like intentionally trying to do harm to Amanda. I just think that they probably thought that they were the only person who was doing that that day instead of like 20 or 30 or 50 people. And it just becomes too much, right? When it's just one person, it's manageable. And there was a time where it was just one person. You know, six years ago it was like I said though, really, really hard for me to be like, I'm not answering DMS anymore, but the messages like this still find their way to my inbox. Like, is quints a good brand? Is reformation fast fashion? Where am I supposed to buy clothes? And I'm going to tell you, with two full time jobs, feral cats to TNR and a desire to have some work life balance, I just don't have time to do the work of background checking brands for others. But you know what I can do is I can show you how to do it yourself. I am not a super genius about figuring out what's going on with a brand. I just know how to search for information. And maybe it's all that time I spent hanging out at the library when I was a kid. Seriously, I would spend so much time there summer that they like were like, I guess you're a volunteer here now and gave me work to do. Definitely. This was the card catalog era and I was really good at helping people find things that they needed for their projects and their reports and whatnot. Maybe it's all the mystery novels I read. As a board tween I can. I do love solving a mystery. I don't know, maybe it's just that I love learning new stuff and seeing through greenwashing and all these other marketing scams. It makes, it makes me feel so Powerful. So I have sort of a whole methodology for how I find out information about different brands. And in this episode, I will show you exactly what I do when I want to figure out the true story about a brand. And specifically, many of you have been asking for this. In this episode, we are going to dig into Quince as an example. So all of you who are wondering about quints will get your answers. For those of you who are like, what the heck is Quince? It still happens. I can't believe it because I feel like Quince has wallpapered the Internet and, and wall to wall carpeted it with advertising at this point. But Quince is an online retailer. They say they offer sort of like affordable luxury. They talk a lot about like natural fibers, they dance around some sustainability claims and some other stu are like a billion dollar company. The last thing I want to say before we jump into all of this is that I get a lot of requests to do takedown posts and episodes on brands and I'm not going to do that. Like, for one, it's just not that interesting to me because it's almost always the same story over and over again. It also has this like super negative undercurrent that feels unnecessary in scary times. I just want to be a source of education, inspiration and hope. And lastly, and I'm going to tell you, by talking about Quince in this episode specifically, it puts me in legal peril that I just do not need as a person who does this work for free and does not have extra money to pay lawyers. Quince specifically has spent a lot of money over the last few years sending stuff, scary letters to activists and journalists in the sustainable fashion space. And I don't need that. That's specifically why we haven't talked about quints here. That said, we'll cross that bridge if we come to it. But I feel like Quince is an exceptional example of what you can learn when you background check a brand. So we are going to do quints today and we're just using information that's already been disseminated across the Internet, so it should make me pretty safe. I also just want to say, even though I don't want to do brand takedown content, there are people out there already doing this work and doing it well. Seriously doing it better than I ever could. If you're looking for deep dives into specific brands, including their quality and supply chains, I can recommend two Instagram accounts that do a great job of this sustainable fashion friend and a look behind the scenes. I'll link to both of them in the show notes so you can check them out and give them a follow. I do not know these people personally, but I appreciate their dedication to pulling back the curtain on these brands. Also, as I walk you through my methodology for background checking brands, I'll be calling out some other resources too. And as always, they will all be in the show notes. In the previous episode of this podcast, we talked about Shein's purchase of Everlane. And as I discussed then, a lot of people felt very betrayed, angry and confused about the announcement. If Everlane was as radically transparent and sustainable as it had been claiming for years, why were they selling to Shein? It just, it just made no sense. And the overarching question was, had Everlane been misleading us all along? Now, a few nights ago, I was sort of pacing around the house thinking through the narrative structure of this episode, and I started thinking about Shein. And I was thinking about how I still see a lot of posts sort of dunking on Shein on social media, which is important because, you know, there are still people out there shopping from Shein. I mean, a lot of them apparently, because the company keeps growing. But I also think, like, I don't know, it's maybe not the best use of our time and resources in 2026 to continue to like, hammer on Shein, because at this point people know Shein's a bad company that makes low quality product and does a lot of unethical things. And the Internet and this podcast are full of information how terrible Shein is. And I almost think a better use of our time is to start focusing on these other companies that are sneaky, like Everlane, right? Like what's really going on there? Because there's something about the constant messaging that's anti Shein, which once again, I support. But it also like, sort of reinforces the quasi goodness, the illusion of goodness of brands like Everlane and spoiler Quince because they look so good in comparison. Because we don't see as much conversation about Everlane or Quince or Reformation. It's easier to do anti Shein stuff than it is to dissect these more complicated situations. But I actually think at this point that's what we need more of. So if any of you are out there, like our aspiring fast fashion educators activists, I would urge you to start tackling these more complex, nuanced brands because I think it's really important. I think that they are selling us the illusion that we can shop our way to a better world. You and I Both know that a better world is actually a really complex thing that's going to require all kinds of change and work from every single person on this planet. And brands like Everlane, brands like Quince, anybody who's out there selling this illusion of sustainability, they are telling us, not directly, but it's heavily implied, that actually we can have a better world just by shopping at the right place and we don't need to do anything else. And that. That's just not true. So anyway, I think we need to have more conversations about these gray area brands than we do about Shein at this point. And of course, I also think beyond hammering on Shein all the time, we need to like, be talking about the changes we need to make as individuals, as parts of communities, and just like as a larger society, that stuff's harder. Right? It's hard work for all of us and it's hard work for us to explain and get people involved in. But I think at this point it's probably more valuable than another post about how Shein sucks. We know Shein sucks. People who shop at Shein. No, Shein sucks. That's where the value of talking about the work we need to do within ourselves becomes extra important. Because at that point, the issue is not that that person is buying from Shein, it's that that person thinks that that's what they have to do or feels like it's their only option or feels stuck with it. So, rant over, let's get back into this. So, like I said, we were all feeling like. Has Everlane been misleading us all along? Well, as I talked about at length in the previous episode, which you should go listen to if you haven't yet, it's all about Everlane. There was a detailed report by the New York Times in 2020 that revealed exactly what Everlane was like. It has been out there for quite some time. And activists, organizations and journalists have been talking about Everlane's greenwashing and toxic internal culture for years. Any customer wanting to background check Everlane's claims could have found clear answers in less than a minute with a simple Internet search. So why weren't people doing that? Well, for one, emotional branding, as we've talked about here, it's a hell of a drug. It drowns out anything bad we might hear and it prevents us from looking for any information. Secondly, Everlane was 100% engaged in a lot of what Greenpeace calls ad bluster, which is heavily marketing the few sustainable, always in heavy air quotes and ethical. Yes, also in Air quotes, all the sustainable and ethical things it was doing beyond digital marketing, like social media ads and affiliate marketing and emails. The company was also capturing a lot of great PR for a long time and with a steady stream of glowing write ups that sort of pollinated the Internet with good vibes for Everlane, despite somehow. Despite that extremely damning New York Times report. I guess it's all to say that if you spend enough money on advertising, people will forget that the New York Times just tore you apart. Noted for future reference. So, yeah, there was a lot of positive vibes. People might call it hype for Everlane going all around the Internet and people already had this emotional connection to Everlane that, you know, if you've ever been in a relationship, that's really unhealthy. If you love someone or something, you'll make a lot of excuses for it, right? All of that was happening, but really at the core of it, people just want to shop, and they don't want shopping to start with a whole research project. So they're gonna take what they've heard, wherever they heard it, it doesn't matter, and they're just gonna run with it. And I totally get it because, I mean, where are we supposed to find time to figure out who's lying to us and who isn't? It's super unfair that brands can mislead us and somehow it's mostly legal. We shouldn't have to do extra work to buy something. But that's just how it is. And personally, I would rather spend a few minutes tracking down the true story about a brand or product than risk giving my very hard earned money to liars and assholes. And I also just tell you, like, I read reviews for products and services before making a decision about what to buy. And sometimes I'm reading reviews and thinking about it for days, weeks, months. And I'll tell you that doing this has saved me from buying the wrong moisturizer. Almost happened. Seriously, thank goodness for reviews. Really, thank goodness for Reddit. It's also prevented me from eating at a restaurant without vegetarian options. You know, like, I don't know about you, but if I'm looking for a new place to eat, I read the reviews. I look at hotel reviews. I want to know what's going on out there. I would never buy an article of clothing without referencing the brand's size chart, no matter how terrible it might be. So, yeah, being a thoughtful shopper means doing your homework, right? It's not hours of arduous work. You're not at the library, sifting through the card catalog rip. It's really just like getting out your phone and doing a quick search, fact checking a brand's claims or learning more about its values. It just feels like another form of reading reviews and checking size charts. It helps me make the best decision and avoid disappointment. And also it's part of the slow fashion way of life to slow things down and to be more intentional. Knowledge is the fuel for change, and knowing the facts allows us to make the best choices for the future we want for ourselves and the planet. And finding information on your own about the ethics and true sustainability of a brand is an important part of being an educated and concerned citizen. And when you know the facts about a brand, you can share that information with other people too. Also, doesn't it kind of piss you off that brands and corporations can mislead us and get away with selling us shitty stuff? Shitty stuff made via human suffering and then they get to take our money and do terrible things with it? Yeah. No. To be honest, the vindictive grudge holding part of me is highly motivated to background check brands. So choose your reason. Protecting yourself, protecting the planet, or just raging against the machine, no matter what is motivating you. Getting to the bottom of a brand's real situation is easy. You can do it with your phone. It only takes a few minutes, and you only have to do it. Over the past year or so my DMs and my email inbox have been filled with questions about quints. And I'm not surprised because I encounter quints ads everywhere, on Instagram and TikTok and on just about any big podcast now. The concept of quints is nothing new from an emotional branding or marketing perspective. Quince purports to sell high quality products, from clothing to home goods to caviar, at significantly lower prices than other brands. Cue the claims of cutting out the middleman and affordable luxury. I've heard it way too many times, and I feel like you've probably heard it way too many times as we've been working through the I'm with the Brand series. Because these are just like classic sort of marketing tropes at this point. Nothing new per se, what TJ Maxx and other off price chains have been doing for decades. And it's essentially what Everlane was claiming too. Now I'll tell you right out of the gate, there are a few red flags for me before I even begin the official background checking of it all. A visit to the Quints website reveals an unhinged number of products and categories. They've got women's, men's, and children's clothing. Okay, fine. They've got home goods, including bedding, furniture, ceiling cookware, and so on. All right, it's getting a little weird here. They have suitcases and other travel items. They have jewelry, including diamonds and other precious gems. All right, this. This is getting a little bizarre. They also have skincare, cosmetics, supplements, and more. And then they have wine and pet supplies and shoes and sunglasses and rugs and outdoor furniture. Just about anything. It's too much. Too much. Thousands upon thousands of items. A product catalog so deep, so wide, that there's no way the brand could have a clear grasp of the working conditions within its supply chain. And if we dig, we dig way back into the classic clothes horse archives. We'll find the Is it fast? Fashion checklist. Some of you have seen this so many times before, and right out of the gate, if we use that checklist, Quint is checking a lot of boxes. The first one is, does the store or website have hundreds or thousands of items for sale? Ding, ding, ding. Yes, it has. Beyond thousands of items for sale, does the brand launch new items every week or every day? With the volume of products on its site, I have have no doubt that Quince is launching new stuff multiple times a week. Do things seem to go on sale pretty fast, AKA would you be embarrassed to buy something full price from this brand? Does the brand have a dazzling array of deals? Deals, deals. I'm not sure about sales and deals, but the prices on the site are unrealistically low. Sure. Higher than Shein. Yeah. But all of you listeners who are sewists, please go take a look at Quints and tell me if you think the prices feel right based on the alleged fabric and, of course, the Labor. Also in 2025, Williams Sonoma, the parent company of Pottery Martin, filed a lawsuit against Quince for false advertising. The suit alleges that Quince has been running ads that depict specific beds, cookware, duvet covers, rugs, and other products that have never been sold by Williams Sonoma or Pottery Barn as, quote, like Williams Sonoma, but half the price or, quote, Pottery Barn quality for half the price. So there is, like a weird deals, deals, deals vibe happening here. And in fact, a class action lawsuit was filed in California in 2025. Big year for Quince, I guess. And that lawsuit alleges that. That the brand was misleading customers by striking through traditional retail prices and using messages like, you save blank percent over traditional retail. That's what we call the compare at price scam for a new generation. It turns out it's a classic and we all fall for it. But also, doesn't this, despite what Quint says, feel like, oh, I don't know, traditional retail it is, right? I love that they're like, oh, we're not like other girls, but we are exactly 100% like other girls. The last question on the old school Clothes Horse is it Fast Fashion checklist is does the brand copy or steal designs from designers and artists? And I'll tell you, Quince is sort of not notorious for dupes. In the past few years it has been sued by Yeti, Ugg and Coach for flagrant knockoffs. So if you are familiar with the Clothes Horse is it Fast Fashion Checklist, it says at the bottom, if you checked more than one box, it's definitely fast fashion. And I'm pretty sure we checked just about everything here. So lots of red flags right away. Now the next red flag is one that you might not notice right away, especially if you're not involved in fashion or fashion marketing or just business marketing as a whole. And that's the non stop flood of advertising, affiliate marketing and influencer partnerships across every single platform and just about every form of media. And I'm going to tell you else, something I've noticed is that that anytime quints comes up for conversation on threads, for example, a bunch of bots show up hyping quints. Well, bots and ads and influencers, they cost money. They cost so much money. Money that actual sustainable ethical brands don't actually have. Money that actual sustainable ethical brands never get to access. Why? Because bluntly, no one becomes a billionaire from sustainable ethical business. I mean, when you think about it, there is no such thing as an ethical billionaire. It's an oxymoron. And I know this all sounds like hyperbole, so let's get down to some retail math. Making high quality anything and making it ethically, meaning everyone works in safe conditions and gets paid a living wage, well, that costs more money, period. And in most cases, consumers feel priced out. So often sustainable ethical businesses have a lower profit margin, meaning they don't mark up the stuff they are selling as much as traditional retailers do. Fast fashion specifically tends to chase a profit margin in the high 70s and 80s, meaning that they are marking up an item four to five times the cost of actually making that item. So if it costs $5 to make, they're selling it for $25. Sustainable ethical businesses can't do that because the prices would be too high for customers. So they are marking up their stuff two to three times the cost to make it instead of that four to five times of fast fashion. And remember that markup has to pay for staff and rent u et cetera. It's not like the brand just pockets that money and walks off that lower profit margin for sustainable, ethical businesses doesn't mean that they can't thrive and grow and create more jobs, et cetera. All the good things. I work with clients who are doing that, but it's a slower process. And surprise, surprise, investors aren't looking for slow growth. They want fast growth and they want immediate return on investment. So that means high profit margins that four to five times markup instead of the two to three times. And that brings me back to the wall to wall advertising carpet that Quince has been buying. Right? That costs so much money and none of my clients could even afford a fraction of that. And when I see that level of advertising, I know that the company has received a ton, a ton of investment. In October 2020, when the company publicly launched, it received $8.5 million in seed money, which by the way, my clients would be stoked to get $80,000 or I don't even think they could imagine $800,000, much less 8.5 million. Well, that's like chump change because in January 2025, Quince raised $120 million in Series C funding. And later that same year, 2025, in July, the company raised another $200 million in Series D funding. And to be clear, Quince would not be receiving that kind of investment if they weren't promising fast growth and amazing profitability to its investors. And sorry, but fast growth is just never ever going to be sustainable and ethical. So just to recap where we are so far, before I even started doing a standard background check of Quints, I had a lot of misgivings about it. Specifically the massive product assortment, the too low to be true product pricing and the non stop advertising across the Internet. But two more things gave me a bad feeling about Quince. One is very specific to me and Dustin, I suppose, and that is that Dustin and I like to take a trip to Lebanon County, Pennsylvania. It's about an hour from where I live to do some thrifting. There are some really awesome thrift stores there that are great for finding vintage books and other weird stuff that we need in our lives. At two weirdos, there is this huge thrift store called Blue Mountain. Like it definitely used to be a grocery store or something. And the first time we went, we were super excited when we parked. It had to be full of treasures because of its sheer size. Right. But when we went inside, we were kind of disappointed. At least a third, if not more of the store is full of unsold brand new Quince products. From home goods to clothing and everything in between. And I mean, like tags still on in the, in in the original packaging. A quince department fills the front of the store and then every other section has a lot of new with tags quints product mixed in. And I'm talking like full size runs. Like, oh, do you like that bathing suit? Don't Worry, they have 20 of each size in that one color. I mean, they have so much quints. There's also a very sad and very infuriating amount of Danielle Bernstein's horrible fast fashion brand. We wore what as well. Also full size runs, stacks of shoes in every single size. I mean, multiple colorways enough for you and your friends to go in and get head to toe matching quintessential we wore what outfits. Multiple outfits too. It's. It's wild. And what this means is that both brands are either dumping or selling their excess inventory and returns to this thrift store. And it's a red flag of overproduction. It's a red flag of a really high return rate, which means the product is not that good. And, and both of those give me a weird feeling about quint. Right. And also, obviously, I already had a weird feeling about we wore what. And I'm going to tell you this quince overload remains the case even now at that Blue Mountain thrift store. And since that first visit to Blue Mountain, I've visited other thrift stores in different counties here in central Pennsylvania, where I have found a similar volume of new with tag quints stuff. Like I said, this is a red flag of overproduction and really irresponsible handling of returns. And clearly returns that are just coming in at an incredible volume because the product is disappointing or low quality or doesn't fit well or all the things that we have come to associate with fast fashion. Moreover, I have never bought anything from Quince, so I always look through it all when we visit these thrift stores. Like, I have to know. And what I found is that while yes, most of the fabrics are natural fibers, they are also the thinnest, cheapest versions of linen and cotton, etc. The kind of stuff that you know will shrink and twist after one wash, that isn't going to have much longevity. So that's one thing that was giving me a not good feeling about Quince. The other is a few years ago friend of the pod, Alden Wicker published a very well researched article on her platform Eco Cult about the veracity of Quince's sustainability claims and she received a scary cease and desist letter from Quince. I'll link to a video where she explains it all. Guess what? Actual sustainable and ethical brands don't threaten activists and journalists in the sustainable fashion space. I mean, are you kidding me? That said, it was a very successful move because it put the fear in all of us, including me about speaking out on quints. And so all anyone out there heard or saw about quints was the non stop barrage of ads that we're still experiencing today. Let's take a moment to thank some of the incredible small businesses who keep Clotheshorse going via their generous Patreon support. Slow Fashion Academy is a size inclusive sewing and pattern making studio based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded by designer and fashion professor Ruby Gertz. Ruby just launched CLO3D for custom fit, a 12 week beginner friendly online course in virtual pattern making with CLO3D software. Instead of making sample after sample, you can now customize avatars that match your real body measurements and fit test garments virtually before cutting into a single piece of fabric. You can also work from your pre existing paper or PDF patterns. CLO3D is starting to be widely adopted by the fashion industry which is a positive shift because using it dramatically reduces textile waste from the sampling process. It also allows you to explore new design concepts without wasting fabric, but it has a steep learning curve. This course is designed to get you over the initial hump to working confidently in the program. It includes 300 plus bite sized video lessons spaced out over 12 weeks weekly live Q and A calls for accountability, a custom body scan to use as a U sized virtual dress form, and a super supportive community of like minded designers that are all learning together in a cohort. Perfect for indie pattern makers, emerging designers or anyone who wants to design clothes that actually fit their one of a kind body. Learn more about the course as well as our in person sewing and pattern making workshops shops@www.slowfashion.academy that's www.slowfashion.academy Selena Sanders a social impact brand that specializes in upcycle clothing using only reclaimed vintage or thrifted materials from tea towels, linens, blankets and quilts. Sustainably crafted in Los Angeles, each piece is designed to last in one's closet for generations to come. Maximum style, minimal carbon footprint. Republica Unicornia Yarns Handmade yarn and notions for the color obsessed. Made with love and some swearing in fabulous Atlanta, Georgia by head yarn wench Kathleen. Get ready for rainbows with a side of giving a damn. Republica Unicornia is all about making your own magic using small batch, responsibly sourced, hand dyed yarns and thoughtfully made notions. Slow fashion all the way down and discover the joy of creating your very own beautiful hand knit, crocheted or woven pieces. Find us on Instagram @republicauunicorniarns and at www.republicaunicornia.com. cute little ruin is an online shop dedicated to providing quality vintage and secondhand clothing, vinyl and home items in a wide range styles and price points. If it's ethical and legal, we try to find a home for it. Vintage style with progressive values. Find us on Instagram at cutelittleruin. Deco Denim is a startup based out of San Francisco and it sells clothing and accessories that are sustainable, gender fluid, size inclusive and high quality. Made to last for years to come. Deco Denim is trying to change the way you think Think about buying clothes. Founder Sarah Mattis wants to empower people to ask important questions like where was this made? Was this garment made ethically? Is this fabric made of plastic? Can this garment be upcycled and if not, can it be recycled? Sign up@decodenim.com to receive $20 off your first purchase. They promise not to spam you and send out no more than three emails a month with two of them surrounding education or a personal note from the founder. Again, that's decodenim.com. Okay, so all that to say I'm coming into this Quince background check exercise knowing that Quince is probably not a brand I would ever give money, but let's pretend that I and now you don't know know any of that. Let's begin this background check. Okay, step one is to search for a brand using a site that rates brands based on their supply chains, materials and animal policies. I recommend Good on you. Goodonyou Eco is the URL because it's the most comprehensive and easy to understand. It rates based on people, planet and animals using a wide variety of data and a trusted methodology. FYI, if you can't find a brand on good on you, it might be too small or new. We'll come back to that problem later, so put a pin in it. Now is a good time to give you a little bit of a disclaimer on Good on you. Sometimes their ratings are a little too falsely positive or out of date. Or they'll hype a brand like Reformation that is like 100% fast fashion. Remember when I was talking earlier about how we need to be more critical of these like gray area brands rather than like always focusing on Shein? Reformation is a great example of that. Like that company is not at all what it hypes itself as. So why would Good on youn be giving Reformation like glowing ratings and recommending them to people? I have a lot of theories about it, but it all it all comes down to money. Running a free platform like Good on youn still costs money. Money to maintain the site, money to do the research and all the evaluations, money to create the content, etc. And I suspect that just like everyone else in the sustainability space, Good on you is not getting a lot of funding these days. Because tbh, most people and organizations doing the educational part of sustainable fashion were never really making banks. But until 2024ish, there was some money, mostly coming from brands like Allbirds, Adidas and H and M. But when they stopped seeing sustainability as a lucrative marketing story, they stopped funding slow fashion organizations and events and just about every other brand out there followed. And the truly sustainable ethical businesses out there, they just don't have the resources to fund that work either. And funding all kinds of other funding has dried up as well. For example, this one is like so minor. But one way that I was able to offset the expenses of making clotheshorse is that for a few years there, about once a month I would do a virtual library talk and I'd get paid like two $300 for my time. And it was great because that was like not a massive chunk of money, but it covered like the hosting costs of Clothes Horse, for example, and, and that funding dried up when Trump became president. I have not done a library talk since 2024 and all kinds of other little things like that have gone away for educators and activists in the slow fashion space because all of these organizations, even the library system, lost funding and had to shift the resources they had left to other more urgent issues. Right, I get it. There's like too many fires to put out right now. And so yeah, this entire area of activism, of education is, is broke. Some organizations closed up shop, like Remake content creators, writers and activists got other jobs or they pivoted into other areas. So how does good on you keep the doors open? Well, they do it via affiliate links and sponsored content, meaning they get paid to write about brands and if you buy an item recommended in a post or an email, they get a cut of that sale, too. The thing about taking money from brands is that it gets harder to be critical of brands, so you might be a little softer about them or talk about them a little less. That said, Quince does not have a good rating on Good nu. In fact, its rating is not good enough, which I think is the second lowest you can get. According to Good on youn, Quince does not communicate sufficient information about its environmental and labor policies. It's that simple. It also says that Quince uses some lower impact materials, including organic cotton. There's no evidence it minimizes the textile waste in its supply chain. There's no evidence it's taking meaningful action to reduce or eliminate hazardous chemicals in manufacturing. There's no evidence it's taking meaningful action to reduce water use. There's no evidence. Are you tired of hearing me say there's no evidence? Well, guess what? There's no evidence it ensures workers are paid living wages in its supply chain. And of course, there's no evidence that it has an animal welfare policy, which is important when you're selling natural fibers like wool, alpaca and cashmere. Basically, Quince has this, like, vibe. This, people have this belief about it, I guess, that it is a sustainable option. There's no evidence that it is at all, period. Right. And I've said this before, if Quince had actual evidence of this stuff, they'd be screaming it from the mountaintops every single day. But they're not. You can read the entire breakdown of Quints on Good on youn. Just go in there and search Quints and I'll remember to link to it in the show notes as well. Another app or platform that comes up a lot in these, like sustainability background check conversations is is Commons, which is an app and a website that allows you to evaluate brands and make direct purchases. Commons makes its money via affiliate links, meaning when you buy something after being referred by Commons, they get a cut of the sales. And to be honest, I think Commons is fine. But I do have a few ethical misgivings about the company. First off, despite raising $13.9 million in investment, the app still frequently steals and reposts other people's work without permission, myself included, rather than truly collaborating with writers, activists and content creators in the sustainability space, or, I don't know, actually funding some of their work since they have revenue coming in. Like alleged sustainable brand Quince sending a cease and desist to a sustainability writer, this theft of people's work feels. It feels icky to me. But Also Commons has investors that really turn me off, including Sequoia Capital, which has also invested in companies with major ethical issues like SpaceX, Airbnb, DoorDash and Instacart, along with lots of generative AI companies including Anthropic. So I personally feel kind of iffy on Commons, but it's still an easy tool that you could use. By the way, they also give Reformation a very high rating, so take it all with a grain of salt. Now I'm going to take the moment to remind you of two other past Clothes Horse guests who have done a lot of work to background check brands for you. That's Eco Stylist and Cobbled Goods and I will link to them in the show notes. Like I would way rather you go visit them then even good on you honestly, you know, start with them. If you still can't find what you need, go to good on you. And then I would say like Commons as the last, the last option. But really it's up to you. Like my opinion isn't more valuable than yours. I'm just saying this is what my, my mental methodology would be. Okay, but back to Quince. For me personally, based on good unused rating, that would be enough to be like, okay, this is probably not a place I want to shop unless they are literally the only place that has what I need at a price that I can afford. And then I would make the purchase and I would make sure whatever I bought lasted as long as possible by laundering it, carefully amending it when necessary, and I would wear it as much as possible. Now let's just say the maybe that maybe the good on you rating wasn't clear enough. Maybe it was kind of middle of the road, or maybe it didn't even exist. That's when I would open up a search window and type in Quint or whatever brand I'm searching and greenwashing. Now, if I was using Google, I would ignore the AI search results, which tend to be inaccurate or fully just wrong. In fact, in fact, analysis published this spring indicated that about 15% of the AI overview results from Google were incorrect. That probably doesn't sound too bad. I mean it's 15%, right? That's nothing. And that means 85% of results are good. And if you got an 85% on a test, you'd be like, hey, that wasn't that bad, right? Sounds okay, except Google processes more than 5 trillion searches every year. I practically blew up my calculator figuring this out. But that means that 750 billion of the AI overview search results on Google would be wrong. And that's a lot of wrong answers. I mean, ask me about the time the AI overview said that Clothesh was hosted by some imposter named Andrea Kennedy. Like, where did that come from? Well, one of the reasons that AI overviews can be inaccurate is that they are pulling data from all over the Internet, including glowing affiliate link listicles and Reddit posts that could have been written by anyone or even by a bot. That also could mean that like, people are just straight up writing untrue things on Reddit, not even intentionally, but just like they've got their facts wrong and yet they're going to pull into those AI search results. So don't use those. And if you want to avoid AI altogether in your search search, you can do that thing where you type the search and I believe minus AI in Google, or you can use DuckDuckGo and turn off the AI options. Regardless, don't ask ChatGPT and Claude. I mean, why are you doing that anyway? They're pulling all their information in the same way that Google AI is and you're going to get incorrect information. So all that that to say doing an Internet search of Quint's greenwashing pulls up so many results and none of them look good for Quince, including articles like Quince says it's ethical and sustainable. Here's why that's not true. Why I will never shill for Quince Quince. They are misleading you. Is Quint a sustainable label or the next shein in the making? I actually read all of these articles and more and it turns out that dun dun dun Quint seems to be engaging in a lot of greenwashing. Based on what I read here, I would definitely end the search and Quint would be a hard pass. In fact, even if I had been like, I don't know, like it is really the only place I can get a linen top that I can afford. I'd probably get so angry reading about how Quince is so sneaky and dishonest that at this point I would be like, I don't need a linen top. I'll just walk around topless from now on. You know, like, it would just turn me off completely. But let's just say I was like, I don't know, I've heard worse. Let's go deeper. Well, next I would take it to Reddit where I would search for people's experiences shopping from quints and it comes up quite a bit like there's a Quint subreddit People talk about it on the ethical fashion subreddit, the sustainable subreddit, like female fashion advice, separate. It's, it's all over the place on there and you know, I'm not hearing great things. Okay. There's a lot of great threads about the quality of quince products and the greenwashing claims of the brand. Someone said I bought a few things from them and have ended up returning it all. It's probably at the Blue Mountain Thrift store in Lebanon, Pennsylvania. Their washable silk is extremely thin and flimsy feeling their linen felt. Meh. Everything is affordable, but I'd rather just wait for a sale from other brands. Another person says none of it is ethically made. I interviewed there and was shocked at how unethical company were and how they looked at the business. It was maximized business at all costs and they never have enough people to get it done. Everybody I talked to was visibly stressed and mentioned turnover is extremely high. This person goes on to say about how they did a bunch of reading and how they like are ripping off factories, how they steal designs, et cetera, et cetera. Another person said, whenever a brand looks fishy to me, I look them up on Glassdoor and their employee reviews are bad. Clearly the company leadership doesn't actually care about sustainability and it's just making these claims as a marketing gimmick. Another person said, just go on Glassdoor and check out the employee review reviews. It's extremely obvious that the good ones are fake. Okay, so let's talk about Glassdoor. Glassdoor is a website where employees, past and present can anonymously review their experiences working for a company. And my experience has always been that if you want to know how ethical and sustainable a brand really is, talk to the people that work there. Seriously. That's why I know that reformation is not what it says, because I have friends who have worked there and they have stories. And when I worked at the horrible feminist brand, we actually got together to write Glassdoor reviews all at once because we didn't want more people to find out what the brand was really like, like the hard way, you know, by working there like we had. So I think Glassdoor can actually be like a really powerful tool for like sort of empowering current employees. I think it is non negotiable that when you apply for a job that you check out the Glassdoor reviews. And I think it can be an unexpected, useful tool for those of us who are trying to background check a brand. Now, one common sign that a company culture is toxic is that you'll see a sprinkling of clearly fake reviews and those reviews will be posted by either like HR or some other employee that was forced to do it. I have worked places where employees have been forced to write positive reviews. It's ridiculous because they're so obvious and they all happen at the same time. Yeah, but it's also like pretty obvious that these reviews are fake because they're just like so unrealistically positive, you know, five stars, no negative feedback at all. And recurring statements that were clearly spoon fed to them like fast paced environment isn't for everyone. Seriously, that is a classic. It's always something like that. Some people won't be up for it, but those who are will thrive. That kind of stuff. And let me tell you, Quince's Glassdoor reviews have all of the hallmarks of a bad place to work. Including the fake positive reviews. A classic. But also here's just a few. Authoritarian culture feels bleak and uncaring from an employee perspective. Not the healthiest environment for an empath path. Firstly, employees are forced to put five star reviews. Many five star reviews are forced. HR drives this activity. Called it bad leadership, toxic culture. Everything is a con here. Run as fast as you can. Do not trust fake reviews written by managers themselves. One person just said awful. Another person said stay far away. Yet another person said highly toxic company, poor work life balance, silent firing, no proper guidance. All the classics of a terrible place to work. Now sometimes a company is terrible and it doesn't have any reviews. And that's often because the team is so small that it would be obvious who left the review and or the company is a scary place to work and people are afraid of retaliation. Both of these were the case at the feminist brand. So absence of reviews, bad reviews doesn't mean a company is good. But bad reviews, well, proceed with caution. Right? In this case, quints sounds like a terrible place to work. I mean, I'm going to tell you, I have read Glassdoor reviews for so many different companies over the year, partially as part of my research here for Clotheshorse. Sometimes when I've been like actively, actively looking for jobs and sometimes just out of curiosity. And Quince has all of the hallmarks of the worst reviews for the worst workplaces that I have read. So I believe that these are all very real and this is a terrible place to work. Work. With all of my years of experience working in toxic fast fashion work environments, I know that a horrible corporate culture like what we're reading here at Quince means that no Workers are being treated well throughout the supply chain because if you can't take care of your corporate staff, who are literally right there in front of you, you definitely do not care about your garment workers, warehouse workers, etc. And also, if you don't care about your employees, you probably don't really care about sustainability either. It just demonstrates a lack of care and concern for humans. You know what? Before we wrap up this glass Door portion of the background check, I'm going to read you, just for fun, the most recent Glass door review for the horrible feminist brand. The title. Well, first off, one star. The title is not walking the talk. And this is just Chef's Kiss. A Vacant Husk. All dressing, no filling. Being badass shouldn't come at the cost of employees. Well, being your PR game may be good, but what is behind the curtains? This is from last summer. And I'm like, yep, that's exactly what I felt when I worked there. Although, a Vacant Husk, I just love that. So kudos to the person who wrote this. For one, writing a review that absolutely nails the company in a concise way, and two, for being brave enough to write it. Because if you wonder why I never name the feminist brand, it's because the CEO is incredibly vindictive. She even sued Target. Just a lawsuit. That was, like, preposterous. Okay, well, we've checked. Good on you. We've scoured the Internet for articles. We have checked Reddit, we have read Glassdoor. And after everything that we have learned from this, this search, which would really only take an individual maybe five, 10 minutes, I would definitely not purchase something from Quint. It seems like Quint is doing a lot of greenwashing, like intentionally misleading customers. The quality seems iffy at best, and that's not sustainable at all. And as a person who has firsthand experience working for toxic brands, I don't want to support any company that treats its employees poorly. Seriously, if you have a bad job, whether it's at a restaurant, a hair salon, a clothing store, or a big corporation, and you tell me about it, I will never support that business again because I'm a very loyal friend and fuck those people. You know, most importantly, after doing this research and anytime I do this sort of background check into a brand, I feel like I know a lot about this brand and I can tell my friends about it. And that feels like a superpower after all, especially in a situation like quints, you know, there's very little criticism of quints that is obvious or readily available. And so people mostly are just going on what they hear in ads and in glowing paid content across the Internet that. So it's important for us, with our superpower of knowledge, to tell our friends what's up. Friends don't let friends buy from quints. I mean, they can, but, like, first let's make sure they know what's up with quints. Right. Also, in doing this kind of research is really empowering to me because I feel like I learn more about the tricks brands use to confuse us, specifically to confuse us into thinking that they are sustainable and ethical and it's easier to spot them in the future. Like all the stuff I told you at the beginning of the episode about what was not sitting well with me about quints, I wouldn't know that stuff if I hadn't looked at so many other brands in the past and identified these sort of like, patterns of behavior that bad companies are engaged in. Right. So now that we know about quints, it's going to make it easier for us to spot other problematic brands. Now, you might be in a situation where the Internet is not full of stories about a specific brand like Quint's, and maybe you can't find them on any of the directories and maybe they're not on Glassdoor. What do you do now? Well, this happens sometimes, especially if a brand is still small or new. And in this case, I do two things. First, I check out the brand's website. Are they talking about the working conditions in their factories? Living wages for workers? If they aren't, that's a red flag. And if they use a lot of polyester, I'm also concerned. In fact, now is a good time to pull back out that is it Fast Fashion checklist. Because if a brand is checking some boxes on that list, it's also a red flag that they are not sustainable and ethical. If the website's not telling me much, if my evaluation using the checklist is still sort of vague, like, it's just a good time to email the brand with questions. If they're super new, they might not know that they should be sharing that kind of info. So you might actually be helping them out. If they give you a weird runaround or send you a bunch of, like, nonsense like written by ChatGPT, that's a red flag too, right? So we just have to ask. Sometimes brands just don't know what they don't know. And sometimes brands are like, hoping that we won't add ask. Most importantly though, is trust your gut. If you've listened to enough clothes, horse you know, when something just doesn't add up, you know the red flags by now. And sometimes you just kind of know that something is too good to be true. As I explained earlier in this episode, I had suspicions about quints for a while because many of the thrift stores in my area are flooded with unsold brand new quince inventory. And like I said, that's a red flag that a company is overproducing and then dumping it in thrift stores. Another red flag for me was the sheer volume and variety of stuff Quint sells. Clothes, home goods, personal care products, and caviar that looks a little bit too much like TEMU or SHEIN to be truly sustainable, because no company can make, make and sell all of these different kinds of things while maintaining a transparent ethical supply chain. So trust your gut here. If it feels weird, it probably is. Well, maybe by now I don't think any regular listeners of Close Horse would say this, but perhaps you're new, or maybe you just heard this saying on the Internet and perhaps you're saying to me, amanda, we all know that there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, so why does this even matter? Well, no, nope, sorry, I do not accept that response, slash excuse, slash coping mechanism. And if you want to know all about why, go Google clotheshorse. There's no ethical consumption under capitalism and listen to a whole episode about it. Because actually, there are tons of brands all over the world that are working really hard to do things the right way. You just don't know about them because they don't have mega marketing budgets like Quint's. And good on you, eco stylists and even social media are great ways to find them. And furthermore, we can easily make more ethical decisions by by shopping small and local whenever possible, opting for secondhand rather than new, and most importantly, buying less new stuff in the first place. But what if after all this, you still feel as if shopping from quints or whatever other brand you were doing this background check on, you still feel like that brand is the best option for you because of price or size or accessibility? Ultimately, I think a lot of people want me or someone to give them permission to buy a certain thing, to shop from a specific brand, etc. And the first thing I'm going to tell you is that you don't need anybody's permission but your own. So where you shop, what you buy, that's all on you and it's your choice. You can make these decisions and you'll make good decisions and you can trust yourself to make those decisions based on what matters to you. Now, something that I say a lot is that we can't shop our way to a better world. And I've been saying this for six years. And sometimes on social media, a small business will show up and be like, well, actually, I think you could shop your way to a better world by buying stuff from me and other small businesses. Yes, shopping small, shopping local. Diverting your money away as much as possible from businesses and companies that don't share your values, sort of divesting your paycheck from mega corporations. Those are significant political acts and they are an important part of building a better future. Like we say, don't give your money to assholes. And I'll tell you that this I have serious issues with political groups and content creators who are shilling fast fashion merch, printed on demand merch, or even just using their platform to encourage people to buy that low quality fast fashion viral Esprit sweatshirt from Costco. Trust me, it's been heavily discussed on the Internet in the past week. And I get frustrated by that because I'm like, hey, you all say you are political, you say you have progressive value, but they seem to end with where we shop. And actually where we shop, who we give our money to, is incredibly political. What we buy is political. And while I don't think human rights and protecting our planet should be a political issue, they are. If you're out there building a platform or organization off of progressive values, why are you encouraging fast fashion consumption? As sad as it is, we have inadvertently, for generations, shopped our way to a worse world. Landfills and oceans full of plastic clothing and plastic packaging and plastic toys and plastic Halloween costumes. Generations of humans doing this. But the solution is not shopping our way out of it. Okay? It is stopping the shopping, but not doing a new kind of shopping that fixes it. It's. It's more complicated than that. And for too long, where we shop, what we buy, how we shop has been treated as a reflection of who we are as people, right? Like, the most important thing about us is what we wear and the brands we wear and where we bought it and how much money we spent. And that's really why emotional branding is so powerful. Since we were small children, it's been ingrained in us, us that what we buy and where we buy it is a reflection of who we are as humans. And because this has both literally and subliminally been repeated to us over and over again, it becomes way too easy to say, oh, if I Just shop from sustainable brands. If I just shop small and local, I'm a good person, I've done my good deeds and everything is fixed. And that is just not true. Because as I say all the time, slow fashion is a way of life. It's not just what you do or do not buy. Sure, that matters a lot. Billionaires exist because they often have generational wealth and other opportunities that the vast majority of us will never have. But they also exist because we, you and me, we give them our money and we need to stop doing that like yesterday. But slow fashion isn't just what you buy and where you buy it. It's also reducing your food waste and using less plastic and being a part of your community and voting and being really active in so many different ways and making the world a better place of living your values every single day. It's doing the very hard personal work to rebuild your relationship with shopping and stuff. Understanding why you feel driven to buy things you don't really need, how it makes you feel before and after, and breaking the habit of impulse shopping, or so called retail therapy. Shopping small, shopping local. Yeah, that's like one star in a large constellation of save the world, change the world, build a better world behaviors, and we have to do them all. And so when I say we can't shop our way to a better world, what I'm saying is shopping alone is not the cure. If we're making smart choices about how much we buy and when we buy it and where we buy it, and we're making that stuff last for a really, really long time, and we're mending it and we're repairing it, we're mindfully rehoming it. All of those things, we're actually disrupting the status quo of over consumption and fast fashion and fast everything. So if quints is your only option or the best option for you, fine. But do all of the other slow fashion things too. You don't give up. Don't be like, well, I suck because of shop de quince. So I guess I'm out of this. I'm gonna go buy a Keurig this week. Don't do it. Right. It's okay. This stuff is complicated. And honestly, I get frustrated with writers and content creators who make it seem simple that if you just spend more money, everything will be fine. If you just bear the incredible shame of, of buying fast fashion than like, somehow you've paid your penance. Come on. It's so much more complicated than that. And I really, personally, I can't Take better living advice from someone who's like, only buying like luxury brands. It's just not applicable to my life and it makes me feel like I don't get to be a part of slow fashion. And I'm here to tell you that's not true. We all have a similar path path for slow fashion. But maybe our day to day looks slightly different. There's just a lot of overlap in what we do. No matter what your version of slow fashion looks like, no one gets to skip the buy less new stuff part of it. Like, that's so important. But change is hard. Change is so hard. And that's why greenwashing and this whole conceit that we could shop our way to a better world is so appealing because it's sort of like, oh, you don't have to change anything else about yourself. Just buy stuff from here instead of from there and then you're good. And that's just not true. But like 90% of the posts on the sustainable fashion subreddit are, where can I find a sustainable version of this highly trendy piece that I only plan on wearing one time for Coachella? It's like, ugh, you're so close. What you really need to do is stop buying hyper trendy things that you plan on wearing only one time for Coachella. That's step one. And then we can talk about where to buy everything else that you need. Now buy less new stuff is another one that people show up periodically to fight with me about. It used to be surprising. I mean, we're like minded people, right? We're fighting for the same thing. But they want to tell me, actually you can over consume stuff if you're buying it from the right person, and that is just not true. Please, please take a step back and think about it. There's someone who owns a wool farm who sent me a series of emails and I doubt they're listening to this episode because there's no way they've ever listened to an episode of this podcast or they wouldn't have dared send me the emails that they were sending me. They were basically telling me that yes, people could over consume wool as much as they wanted and there would be no negative impact on the planet. And the problem with me saying that people shouldn't over consume stuff is that I don't understand how farming works, I don't understand agriculture, etc. Etc. They were incredibly patronizing when they offered to to explain to me how agriculture works. First off, come on, I grew up in the country surrounded by Farmers. I have relatives who are farmers. I have spent summers picking produce from fields. I am up on agriculture, ma'. Am. But also, if everybody was buying wool clothing at the rate they're buying polyester clothing right now, meaning over consuming it, meaning buying way more than they are actually need, we would see all kinds of new problems develop. One would be, of course, producing wool at that scale would mean that there would be all kinds of animal mistreatment across the world. And that's already happening right now. By the way, PETA sent me a video of sheep being abused at a wool farm that was producing wool for a large apparel and textile company. I'm still traumatized by it. It made me cry. Imagine we're already seeing humans around the world being exploited and mistreated to make clothing. Let's just throw some sheep into that too. But also, the industry would need to make room for all those sheep to graze, so we can just keep cycling through clothes all the time. Of course, we would lose a lot of land that's currently being used for other forms of agricultural like, I don't know, growing food or, you know, enjoying outdoor space or any number of other things that we need land for. And so there would be these very direct environmental impacts of over consuming wool clothing. Once again, this answer is never an easy fix. And yet the answer is simple. The answer is, is buy less new stuff, even if it's clothing made of wool. Be an active, concerned citizen in your community and just try your hardest to leave the world a better place than it was without you. In case you missed it, for the past week or so, a viral Esprit sweatshirt from Costco has been making the rounds on social media, and my DMs and inbox were blowing up with questions about it. So I did some research and wrote a quick post about it. I shared it on threads and Instagram. It's just a normal day. And while a lot of people were very angry at me for explaining that the sweatshirt was just a low quality and shittified version of something they remembered fondly, I will link to both things. I wrote about it in the show notes so you can go check it out because I don't want to rehash it now. But one thing that was concerning me about this whole thing was that some writers and content creators were pitching this sweatshirt, which was made via licensing because Esprit has been RIP for a few years. So it's just a label slapped on some fast fashion, right? They were pitching it as like a Gen X Revolution or Gen X women revolt kind of moment. I mean listen, imagine if it were that easy to turn over the status quo. Like. Like just buy this cotton Poly sweatshirt for 16.99 and everything will be fixed. Look at health care and living wage and bodily autonomy and all the racists and homophobes and transphobic people. They'll have to go live on an island alone together that is so far away we'll never see them again. And like men will stop being creeps and I don't know, will get nice places to live and access to good food and good water and the climate crisis will be resolved and just we're all going to be so happy. All those AI Bros. They're like going to go off into space and we'll never see them again. And wow, what a time to be alive it would be. I will buy multiple 16.99 Esprit sweatshirts from Costco if that's the Fit 6. Shop your way to a better future, right? Sounds easy. Well, obviously that's not the situation and I want to wrap up this episode with part of the essay I wrote about the sweatshirt. Once again, the whole thing will be linked in the show notes. You can read the whole the whole piece. Here's what I have to say about it and kind of everything we've been talking about ever here on Clothes Horse. We really do need a revolution. And you have no idea how excited I get about the prospect of a revolution that is not led by CIS men. It's long overdue. But here's the thing. The revolution will not have a cute logo. The revolution will not be for sale at Costco. The revolution will not be a sweatshirt. The revolution will not come with free shipping or a discount code. The revolution will begin with hearing and accepting some uncomfortable truths. The revolution will be admitting that we are fed up with the status quo. The revolution will be changing the way we live our lives, divesting from systems and industries that only widen wealth inequality while polluting the planet. The revolution will be reaching out to grab our neighbor's hand and saying, we will do this together. Thanks for listening to another episode of clotheshorse. Written, researched, edited, hosted all the things by me, Amanda Lee McCarty if you liked what you heard, please leave a Rating A Review Tell your friends if you'd like to support my work financially, there are many ways you can do that. You can always find it in the show notes notes on my website and in my social media bio on just about every platform. Lastly, but of course, never leastly thank you to Mr. Dustin Travis White for our music and audio support. And I will talk to you all very soon. Bye, Sam.