Can Fashion Merch Create Real Change? This Group of Creatives Proves Its Power
BY BROOKE BOBBJune 22, 2020
IA few months ago, several members of the team at R/GA, a New York–based design and marketing firm that’s worked with Nike, eBay Fashion, and Rimowa launched their own nonprofit. Chloe Saintilan, Zack Roif, and Matthew Woodward are the creatives behind Merch Aid, a website that brings well-known artists together with small businesses struggling to survive the global coronavirus pandemic. Saintilan, Roif, and Woodward facilitate the connections and produce and distribute T-shirts, tote bags, and prints featuring the small businesses and their logos, designed by the artist they’re paired up with. About 50% of sales from each piece of merchandise goes directly back to the businesses, with the remaining funds going into the production and distribution costs of the nonprofit model.
The project began locally in New York City, but has expanded to businesses based in Austin. Some of the collaborations have included NYC’s Nitehawk Cinema and artist Lauren Martin, Emily Chen for Wu’s Wonton King, and Matt Willey and Bill Bragg for Casa Magazines. Most recently, the Merch Aid team held a sale that included original work by Black artists, including Bria Benjamin and Bobby C. Martin Jr. Proceeds from these sales went directly to various organizations supporting the Black Lives Matter movement, like the Ella Baker Center, Black Lives Matter Greater New York, and Be the Bridge.
Dropping on Merch Aid’s site beginning today (they do one drop per day) are collaborations between the iconic Cubbyhole bar in the West Village and Leanne Gan, as well as neighborhood restaurant La Bonbonniere and Paula Scher (this is the kickoff drop for the new lineup). Photographer Mark Seliger and artist Baron Von Fancy have also signed on to participate.With the fashion industry facing a reckoning over its past, particularly its entrenched exclusivity and systemic racism, merchandise is an area that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Typically, when slogan T-shirts have been used in runway shows, they’ve signaled a one-season-only solidarity with a particular movement, more like PR pushes than products that can drive actual change. Saintilan, Rolf, and Woodward believe that the time is now ripe for fashion brands to put their money where their mouths are and refocus their merchandise efforts on products that make a difference, both financially and systemically. Here, Saintilan and Rolf discuss their approach to merch and how, if created and distributed the right way, it can help facilitate progress that matters in the long run.
How has Merch Aid evolved over the last several months, and what have you learned throughout the process?
Zack Roif: Ironically, in the process of creating Merch Aid, we realized that we too had become a small business. As a bunch of advertising employees who have never run a business before, it’s definitely been a learning curve. We went from working full-time in design to doing everything from customer service to navigating tax and deliveries.
Chloe Saintilan: For the participating businesses, Merch Aid has had an impact far bigger than purely financial. It’s been overwhelming for many to see the outpouring of love and support for their stores from locals, and from those all across the city, as well as nationwide. Many have been surprised by the popularity of their merchandise. The collaborations have also resulted in a few shops selling the merch on their own sites, creating an ongoing revenue stream. Merch Aid opened a window into a support system that these small businesses hadn’t been able to, or hadn’t thought to, activate online.
Why and how did you begin to focus your efforts on Black-owned businesses and artists?
CS: Following the murder of George Floyd, we felt that it was important to redirect Merch Aid to where it could make the biggest and most immediate impact, and that was centered around organizations fighting for Black rights. We delayed the NYC business collection that we had slated for the launch and put together a collection of seven partnerships between leading Black designers and nonprofit organizations. The support was incredible, with over $45,000 in profits from the collection going straight to the organizations only after one week of sales. It really showed us that what we’ve built isn’t a COVID-exclusive platform, but one that has a lot of potential in cause-led fundraising.
ZR: The pandemic is also disproportionately hurting the BIPOC community as well as Black-owned businesses, so we are committed to continuing our support of those businesses in upcoming collections.
The word merch can be tricky in the larger scope of the fashion industry. In the past, T-shirts have been used as political marketing tools or as PR-driven means to make a brand appear more “woke.” How do you believe that merch can be used for meaningful, actionable change the way it has been within Merch Aid?
CS: In advertising, we’ve definitely seen brands using cause-related merchandise as a PR stunt or an attempt to appear “woke.” Consumers know when a brand’s efforts are self-serving. They want to support brands that are genuinely seeking to support nonprofits, rather than jumping on a trend.
I think that Merch Aid has proven that if done right, merch within the fashion industry can be used to create meaningful impact. Merch offers brands an opportunity to both educate customers on pressing topical issues, as well as give them a unique and ownable way of taking action. I think the fact that Merch Aid sells thousands more T-shirts than prints, for example, shows that people are wanting, more than ever, to publicly show their support for issues and literally are wearing their hearts on their sleeves—or pockets! Fashion is moving away from specifically flaunting your style to flaunting your values. It’s almost like a whole new “social-good” street cred.
ZR: Achieving authenticity is also dependent on your brand taking a back seat. It’s not about you. It’s not “Supreme x” or “Carhartt x”; it’s between an artist and a business or an artist and an organization, and we’re just facilitating it. When brands seek too much attribution, it’s clearer to consumers that you’re just trying to look good and not do good.
Merch feels most genuine when the brand is committed to actively supporting the cause beyond the collection of merch itself. It also has to involve a genuine financial contribution from the company creating it. When it comes to donations from merch sales, anything less than 30% going to the business begins to feel less genuine. We’ve worked to keep our hard costs as low as possible, and once we cover the costs of inventory, printing, and shipping, all profits (on average, about 50% of each sale) go straight to the business.
Transparency also plays a very important role in the authenticity of merch. Since we launched Merch Aid, we’ve been very clear about what percentage covers hard production costs and how much the businesses are getting.
Do you see a shift in terms of shoppers becoming more conscious consumers, and if so, do you believe that shoppers will really begin to invest their money wisely?
ZR: While consumers in general do appear to be headed in a more conscious direction, it can often be incredibly difficult to gauge levels of authenticity and the actual contributions that many of these brands purport to be making. There are so many brands that are entirely or partially owned by massive hedge funds or other corporations that spend enormous amounts of money lobbying against the causes and initiatives that those brands typically “stand for.” It’s just important that consumers stay vigilant around what they buy and from whom, and that they do their research as it seeps more and more into the mainstream.
Merch is also a big driver of the streetwear market. Do you believe that the streetwear market is becoming more conscious? Can Merch Aid provide a model for covetable, limited edition fashion items that are actually helping those who need it most?
CS: We’re just starting to explore this intersection. We’ve seen a number of major labels attempting this with varying success rates, like Balenciaga releasing a capsule that supports the World Food Programme (good), and larger fast-fashion brands supporting superficial environmental impact collections, which are regularly critiqued in the media (not so good).
ZR: I think drop culture is definitely here to stay for now, but it’s just about shifting the mentality around it. As consumers are changing their own ideas around what they care about, we’re changing what we can create hype about. Would we love to see Merch Aid resold on Grailed or StockX? Absolutely. And it appears we’re headed in that direction. We’ve received comments comparing Merch Aid drops to Supreme drops, which we find hilarious considering that it’s merch for, say, a local New York deli. So at the end of the day, if we can get the general public as hyped for a dry cleaner as a new Comme des Garçons drop, then we’ve done our job for now.
Ceramics by Jono Pandolfi | middle images shot at Aro Ha