I’m the holy grail for West Elm, Pottery Barn, Ikea, and every other home store out there: I moved to a new apartment in Manhattan within the past six months and just had a baby. My intent to buy is so high that for the first time ever I’m actually buying things off the catalog at full price.
But sadly, Pottery Barn doesn’t want me or my brown-skinned daughter. In their latest Pottery Barn kids issue, there are 13 pictures of children and only one is a child of color. Products are shown next to pictures of happy, carefree cream-toned children like a young boy with tussled brown hair who swings effortlessly on a rope and two young girls with paisley-adorned back packs who walk leisurely on the boardwalk. Soft chairs inscribed with names like Reece, Ella, Chloe, and Adrian fill an entire page. The magazine meticulously sets up the idyllic beach escape where personalized bath towels and monogrammed pillows casually decorate a summer home. Everything in it screams rich, white privilege.
Reading the catalog, I feel a door slam in my face. On one hand, I’m the ideal customer for Pottery Barn as a young, highly educated, upwardly mobile woman that is one half of a dual-income household. On the other, I’m being told that no one with my brown skin tone belongs in their imagined summer escape. Even Fast Company reinforces the notion that a “tall, slim blond with pale-blue eyes” would be the ideal “poster child for a Pottery Barn ad”. People like me with names that aren’t similar to Preston, Jackson, or Olivia (all names in the catalog) apparently can’t have our own personalized pillow.
This depiction of white privilege is an anachronistic and myopic way to attract a new generation of customers. This approach might’ve worked in the 80s and 90s, particularly for immigrant families who associated privilege with equal opportunity. It was a time when ‘making it’ meant collecting all the things associated with ‘being white’ such as moving into the suburbs, shopping at Bloomingdales, and buying a luxury vehicle. The script was clear: the color of privilege and opportunity was white. If you want in, even a little bit, then play the part.
This isn’t the case anymore. Privilege is still mostly white, but as the economic and social power of minority groups grow, they’re tipping the scale. Companies on the right side of them are observing and adapting. This article on BlackSocialTV demonstrates how black viewership of popular TV shows are driving up TV ratings and social media usage, putting networks like Bravo and ABC at their behest.
Pew reports that Asian Americans make up the fastest-growing, highest-earning, and most educated group in the U.S. Importantly, more of this group self-identifies with their country of origin than not. Similar to the audience behind BlackSocial TV, Asian Americans consider their heritage and culture assets that should be acknowledged. In other words, to get to our wallet, you have to see us. This doesn’t mean that because I have Pakistani heritage that I want to buy South Asian products. It means that I want to see myself in the vision of your product. Put a darker skinned woman in a bathing suit on that lawn chair next to the pool. Or throw in a name like Layla or Lucinda on a pillow so I can imagine me and my friends reclining on them.
The truth is that Pottery Barn’s growth is on an upward trajectory and people like me are still buying from them. But as more targeted, nuanced, and high quality vendors come to market offered by companies like Etsy and Of A Kind, my wallet — and certainly that of my daughter’s when she’s older —will happily open itself to the companies that I need and like, not just the ones who leave catalogs at my door.
