Company news: “bemused” by Black Friday retail frenzies, United kingdom furniture brand Vitsœ is closing its retailers on 27 November to protest against the culture of discounting merchandise.
“At Vitsœ we are bemused by the spread of Black Friday,” stated a statement titled Black Friday Insanity on the company’s internet site. “Certainly it promotes the polar opposite of the needs of our fragile planet.”
“Artificially stimulating revenue to motivate a short-phrase desire to commit is antithetical to a globe of depleting resources in which our purchasing selections need to be considered ever a lot more meticulously,” it continued.
Black Friday requires area after Thanksgiving in the USA every single year, when merchants slash costs of items for a day to mark the starting of the Christmas purchasing season.
The occasion is swiftly taking hold in other parts of the world, with much more retailers in far more nations cashing in on the possibility to sell-off previous stock each yr.
Vitsœ solely owns the rights to merchandise furnishings by Dieter Rams, including his 621 Side Table
Vitsœ has made the decision to merely close its shops in London and New York on Black Friday, which falls on 27 November 2015. The brand also has stores in Los Angeles and Munich (major image).
The brand is the exclusive worldwide licencee of products by German designer Dieter Rams, the former head of style at Braun, including the 620 Chair and 621 Side Table.
Relevant story: Vitsœ granted unique licence to create Dieter Rams furnishings
“At Vitsœ we have constantly created and built furniture for the lengthy phrase,” mentioned the brand. “We have usually presented a single, fair, truthful value – keeping away from discount rates and product sales – so that our lifelong clients can buy whenever they want.”
The term Black Friday was allegedly coined by police in New York and Philadelphia in 1961. The day has turn into linked with huge crowds and even occasional violence as buyers vie for the best discounts.
Vitsœ’s announcement follows a prior marketing campaign, for which the organization produced a movie (above) decrying the manufacturing of items that are purposefully designed with a constrained life.
“A couple of many years in the past we created a video about the phenomenon of planned obsolescence, which drives discount culture and its huge waste of all-natural sources,” mentioned Vitsœ. “Regrettably it is nonetheless related right now.”
The campaigns are portion of a wider move towards “anti-marketing” inside layout. Earlier this yr, Dezeen Watch Store launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign titled Buy a standard watch in response to the release of Apple Watch.
Hella Jongerius and Louise Schouwenberg also took a adverse strategy to get their stage across, publishing a manifesto during Milan layout week calling for an end to “pointless items, business hypes and empty rhetoric” in design.
