Strait City Trading Co

News and Views

View of the "City on the Straits" from across the Detroit River. Photo by Bob Rolfson

Scott Schuman's wonderful eye

(2009-11-23) Scrolling through the photographs at the Sartorialist is mesmerising. Striking people, exciting colors, cool ideas. A couple of times we thought, "Yes! we can do something like that, too."

For instance there is this guy in Paris: . OK, maybe the polished mirror buckle and semi-unbuttoned fly are a bit exhibitionist, but you could tone it down a bit like this: .

Or these rodeo girls in Las Vegas (Nevada, I assume): . The rodeo buckles are kind of big outside the corrals, but you could go from brass to glass:

Online Fashion Discounting

(2009-11-15) A couple weeks ago, the Financial Times ran an article on Vente Privee, one of France's successful internet retailers. A private buying club, Vente Privee employs 1000 people, most in the old La Monde printing plant, now painted pink, surely to the horror of the aristocratic ghosts that remained behind.

Like our company writ (very) large, Vente Privee does everything in house, from web site programming to photography to, apparently, fulfillment. Unlike retailers like us who distribute generic Chinese manufactures, they market designer brands and have Andy Warhol's Mao hanging in the CEO's office: .

Despite all that, there is something familiar and charming in the FT reporter's take on the converted plant:

Endless racks of winter coats, blouses, evening dresses, baby clothes, men's sweaters, shoved into every available space, in the hallways, between desks, on stair landings. Where there are no garments, there are boxes of shoes in precarious piles, children's toys, kitchen blenders, down-filled duvets, angular sofas, lamps.

Far from Paris couture Granjon, the CEO, observes "Brands always talk about image. But really they want to sell large quantities." So much for Mao.

Brave New World of Neuromarketing

(2009-10-18) From the WWD "story of the week" a rather silly article that still manages to send a chill down my spine, recalling images of rats with electrodes protruding from their brains:

Brain scanning is being used to help predict how shoppers will respond to products and shopping environments. And firms ranging from teen retailer Abercrombie & Fitch Co. to The Walt Disney Co. want to encourage the impulse to purchase, partly by stimulating the senses through smells, sound and light.

I'm reminded of an amusing note on Japan I read once. Vending machines for almost everything had become very popular. Apparently people sought respite from the elaborate social rituals involved in even the simplest face-to-face transactions.

It seems that the internet can serve a similar function. Surely, there is no substitute for seeing, touching, even smelling an article of clothing before buying it. But what if you know that scientists behind the scenes have engineered the lighting, piped in seductive sounds, even pumped the article with mind-bending scents, just to incite your desires?

Well, you can shop online. I personally turn off Flash and seek out sites that try harder to convey information than to manipulate me. And they are definitely out there; from big names to mom-and-pops, many websites are getting better at helping the visitor "see" their wares. Sometimes information really does want to be free.

Brand Names and Our Assumptions

(2009-09-06) An article Wiggling Their Toes at the Shoe Giants appeared last weekend in the New York Times. At the time, in memory of all the conversations I've overheard concening footwear for runners, I just chuckled and assumed a more benign attitude towards my older pairs. But then it struck me how this is a perfect case study of name brands in today's marketplace.

Psychologically, brands are the familiar faces in an otherwise bewildering universe of merchants shopping their wares. More than simply fashion, a brand can invite trust. The big running shoe companies certainly established such a position. Remember the Reebok commercials with guys in white coats?

Now, all we thought we knew about the benefits of running shoes, maybe we don't know at all:

But for all the technological advances promoted by the industry--the roll bars, the computer chips and the memory foam--experts say the injury rate among runners is virtually unchanged since the 1970s, when the modern running shoe was introduced. Some ailments, like those involving the knee and Achilles tendon, have increased.

Suddenly, it seems the face we trusted was just playing us.

This relates to what we do here at Strait City Trading. For the most part we offer simple clothing accessories, and none of them bear a well-known brand name. We can offer lower prices as a result, that's true, but at the same time we impose on the customer's trust. However, with brand names abusing customers' trust, it seems, at the very least, that the choices are not so stark.

Arts and Crafts Belts

(2009-01-26) From the NYT Pulse column by K Nelson, a wave of creative fantasy in couture belts. One photo of a collage belt from a Marc Jacobs model; wrap some cool band about waist and tie off with cord: . Doesn't seem very practical, does it?

More believable are the belts in the second photo: . Part vintage and part "artsy", still some striking ideas in color and texture.

Proper credits at this NYT permalink.

The Price of Imports from China

(2008-12-11) Trade with China has been much in the news this year, but the seminal publication this year has been The China Price by Alexandra Harney. Ms Harney went to great lengths to get information about economic activity in China that heretofore has been suppressed by China's government.

What emerges is a multi-faceted picture of a developing economy in the context of Chinese culture. In order to compete globally with low prices, China needs cheap labor. At the same time, China needs imaginative entrepreneurs and soundly engineered infrastructure in order to get goods to market. The former needs strong social stratification for a large pool of compliant labor while the latter needs a more flexible, educated and open society. These conflicting forces are beautifully illustrated by the story of young girls in a factory dormitory, one of whom leaves the factory and succeeds as a real estate salesman.

Ms Harney visited numerous other stress points of China's rapidly changing economy: wildcat coal mines, shadow factories, occupational health and safety advocacy centers. She studied the conflicts of the Chinese government, at once charged with attracting business and protecting its citizens, and of global corporations like Walmart and Timberland, who are driven by their customer base (us) both to pursue the lowest producer prices ruthlessly and, at the same time, to demand humane treatment of factory workers.

These issues affect all of us, but at Strait City Trading we have a more immediate view than most. Even the factories in Taiwan and South Korea that we buy from must operate knowing how easy it is to lose their business to China. When we pack an inexpensive accessory for a domestic customer, we understand the double-edged sword that made it possible. On one hand there is the young factory girl working interminable hours under marginal conditions, and on the other hand, global trade has lifted so many out of poverty.

Buckles Reveal Secret Narrative

(2008-05-09) Costumes of comic book superheroes, or their interpretations, are now on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Marking the occasion, an accompanying essay by Michael Chabon has appeared in the New Yorker and the Financial Times and in the Met's own publication.

The idea of the superhero's costume, explains Chabon, is to help conceal his origin. But,

no matter how well he hides its traces, the secret narrative of transformation, of rebirth from the confines of the ordinary, is given up by the costume. Often the secret narrative is hinted at with a kind of enigmatic, dreamlike obviousness right on the hero's chest or belt buckle, in the form of the requisite insignia. Superman's "S" shield only coincidentally stands for Superman: In fact the emblem is the coat of arms of the ancient Kryptonian House of El from which he descends.

Oops. Perhaps you, too, cannot resist the urge to let slip some hint your secret, superheroic hidden self: .

The WSJ on stylish men's belts

(2008-04-21) The Wall Street Journal has offered some advice to help men update their belt wardrobe. According to Teri Agins (April 17), men's belts can be a fashion accessory that can provide a stylish fillip to a look. He suggests that

the garden-variety smooth leather styles with a thin brass buckle are too pedestrian nowadays. Instead, try belts with some kind of surface relief -- such as lizard, crocodile, ostrich or embossed leathers that resemble exotic skins.

To add a little spice to your look he suggests a contrasting rather than matching color for a belt, a dark burgandy belt can give a lift to a navy pinstripe suit, for instance. He mentions braided leather belts for khakis or colorful web belts that accent polo knit shirts.

So he's got you nodding along, I mean how rad is a braided leather belt? But then he mentions how Fred Astaire would wear silk neckties as belts to "impart a kicky look". Whoa! Who is this Teri Agins? I've seen neckties about the waist in Brooks Brothers, but the mannequins were decidedly feminine. But, ahem, I digress.

One might also consider new styles of buckles, perhaps a different metal (silver, distressed brass), perhaps a different shape (octagons, ovals), but avoid the designer logos. So toss out those worn-out belts and start building a wardrobe with a variety of styles and colors.

His article is accompanied with a photo from Nordstrom of several nice belts: . And you will indeed find some very nice belts there. Then again maybe you're like me a few years back. Got my first job and immediately went to Nordstrom's in Fashion Island, Newport Beach and bought some clothes, including a nectie with the Yves Saint Laurent designer logo. My new boss, Perry K., immediately teased me, "We're not paying you enough to buy those clothes".

Well, if your boss isn't paying you enough to shop at Nordstroms, and you'd still like to reload your belt wardrobe, you might like to look at some of Strait City's men's leather belts.

Color, Lies and Digital Cameras

(2008-03-25) Big box stores and name brands may yet take over the world, but there is still an amazing power in a few technologies that have found their way into the hands of individuals. For us it has been the computer, the internet and the digital camera.

Our website and myriads like it, not to mention the behemoths like E-bay, are premised on a very simple idea: use a digital camera and descriptions to market products through the internet. Images are to be faithful representations of the product for sale. For better or worse, mass market cameras, like our politicians, temper truth with flattery. This is not usually a problem, but sometimes it is.

Our particular bugaboo has been the inexpensive olive green web belt. Starting out with our trusty Kodak DC4800, we just kept getting brown when we knew the color was olive. Iterations of camera settings and light sources, and even a move to more expensive Nikon SLR's just never changed brown back to olive.

Then finally, a light broke, so to speak. The Pantone bridge guide provides a palette of colors, each with the combination of red, green and blue that will reproduce it. That allows us to analyze the camera's "improvement" of the color space near a color of interest, like olive. A good pro/am camera like the Nikon then provides enough flexibility to nudge the color back to where it ought to be.

Voila! Olive:

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