March 17, 2017 – Zipper Economics

            Arriving in unfamiliar towns is becoming oddly familiar.   It is usually easy to locate the city center, and once I got there Macon had signs pointing to a visitors center.  Wonderful idea, I thought to myself, I would push the visitors centers ability by inquiring not after lodging and food but tailoring supplies.  After circling the downtown area a few times I learned that Macon had multiple visitors center signs, but no visitors center (at least that I could find…).  The visitors center was probably disrupted by Google so I contributed to its downfall by pulling over and searching my phone map.  30 seconds later Siri was guiding me five miles away to the nearest JoAnne’s Fabrics.             After obtaining the needed replacement zipper, I decided to try to go analog again, by asking the sales clerk for a recommendation of a local alterations shop that might be able to do some emergency repairs.  She directed me to go up one more freeway off ramp to the cleaners at the gas station and inquire there.  This was exactly the type of place I was looking for.  In San Francisco it seems every cleaner has a sewing machine in the shop corner, and this was a five-minute job at best.  Sadly when I got there the seamstress was not in today so back out into the cold I went.

            I figured I would try Google this time, so I had my phone look up “Sewing and Alterations” as I filled the bike with Gas.  The closest one was about 3 miles away. Siri once again took over navigation and away I went blindly followed her commands.

            She led me was to an area I would never have found on my own.  As I rode the houses got nicer, estates got bigger, horses and jumps started appearing in front yards.  Before I knew it I was driving right past country clubs and Wesleyan College.  (I had known of this private, liberal arts, woman’s college for years, but until today had no idea where it was actually located…nice digs!!)  About a block away from the college was an upscale commercial area with a dry cleaning and alteration business.  As I entered I noticed not one but at least four very nice Juki industrial sewing machines.  There was a man and a woman at work, and a separate room in the back for the dry cleaning business. 

            The man got up and listened to my situation.  He looked at my jacket and the replacement zipper I had bought, and then proceeded to tell me what a difficult job it was to replace the zipper.  Now for those of you who may not know me… I sew.  It’s a skill I picked up making costumes for renaissance fairs, and I have turned it into a small stilt walking business by making all the costumes myself.  Both sides of the broken zipper were on a non-exposed internally elevated fold of the jacket that is hidden from view by a Velcro tabs.  The repair stitch work could be easily hidden if one were to just pop out the broken parts and surface stitch in the replacement.  (What I really wanted was to just use one of his machines for five minutes and do it myself…)  Long story short, when he got around to quoting me a price of $45 for the work, I politely declined and left the shop.

            As I rode for the rest of the day a couple of thoughts about this situation kept coming back into my head.  One is about the teaching and employment of learned skills.  There was a time when sewing was a commonly learned and practiced skill, every household that could afford it, had a sewing machine, and people made their own clothes.  Now a day we purchase premade garments and have to a large extent lost the common skills of alteration and tailoring.  When in the rare occurrence that these skills are needed again, those who can afford to rely on specialists, which allows for the business to turn upscale again, as I encountered at the second location today.

            But that is not the only factor driving the scenario here.  A lot of what my job is about is teaching skills to students so that they have greater economic mobility.  Yet if I teach everybody those skills they will no longer be as valuable and we have broken the economic model that allows for the upward mobility they seek.  Guilds used to be set up to protect and regulate these kind of issues, but today much of what I try to impart to my students is not a single idea or knowledge base, but a complex understanding of skillsets and how they interact.  Needing a higher level of mastery or understanding of your field is not just academic, it is a requirement for economic mobility because our skills are so interdependent, and in the larger context, we need to understand more than just one part of the puzzle.  As the economic forces continue to try and push instructors to teach only the basics (just tell them what they need to know to get the job done) we are lessening the economic strengths of the fields in which we work.  For example fashion classes at CCSF teach much more than the skills of sewing and fabric alteration, most of them are marketing oriented… 

Which brings me to another thought.  To some extent the driving force in my interaction today was not the skill of sewing, but the location and marketing of the alteration business.  The second shop owner knew his clientele and his price structure for that client.  (As market forces go a lot of our price points are driven by what people will pay, not by the value of the goods or services provided)  This has gotten to the point where it is harder to determine what the actual value of an item or skill is.   This is where a “Post Fact” world contributes to serious erosion in our knowledge-based economy.  The price of corn may now depends on the IP address of your Google server…  If I were not relying on technology in my interactions today, I more than likely would never have left the low price zone of town.

I find it ironic that part of this is about culture and perception.  I have been spending time with the “red neck” do it yourself culture in my travels over the last few weeks, and it is not lost on me that while we may want to “Make America Great Again” we might be devaluing ourselves and our substantial skills precisely by doing it ourselves…    now where can I get my hands on a sewing machine…