Selling organic, fair trade cotton yoga wear, bed lined and kids clothes, Gossypium is the kind of place that attracts and reviles me at the same time. Obviously fair trade and organic = good. You can imagine that the people that shop there regularly have lovely, ethical, happy family lives. But something about the fact that they specialise in yoga wear, and that in my fantasy of the clientèle everyone is shiny and ethical and liberal, and probably bakes organic cookies with their happy healthy kiddies at the weekend, after picking them up from their bassoon lesson and taking them for a walk in the woods just makes me feel a bit sick. It's just a bit too smug. But then this negative reaction is probably just a manifestation of my unresolved middle-class guilt issues. That's one of the problems of being liberal and having a humanities degree from an era where everything is post-modern and 'meta' - you develop liberal sensibilities, but alongside it you develop a self-critical, self-reflexive awareness which means that you simultaneously feel smug and hate yourself for it. And then you analyse it in circular thought processes like these. It's very dull, and going into shops like Gossypium just dredges it all up when I could have been happy enough watching Gossip Girl and thinking about nothing.
Er... anyway, back to Gossypium. The other thing about the target market is that they generally have a bit of money to spend, and, as part of their ethical lifestyles are more likely to splash out on a yoga top that will last them longer and therefore be less wasteful. As a result you are looking at about £20 for a plain tee, £40 for a patterned top, and so on. Plus they have started doing these boxer shorts which they dye after making them, rather than dying the fabric then putting them together - something about a less wasteful process, but the end result is, they look second hand. A bit gross for underwear items. read more