I’ve never liked Black Friday. It’s always left an icky taste in my mouth. The American tradition dating back to the ’60s has ramped up in Australia in recent years, with Cyber Monday, Travel Tuesday and other week-long sales sneaking their way into our calendars.
It’s never really been a question of whether my womenswear label would participate in Black Friday. My friend Alice Mcintosh and I started Sister Studios in 2015 super organically. We started sewing pieces just for fun, then sewing for friends, and then selling in a local Melbourne fashion Facebook group. We were a bedroom label for sure – a tiny, made-to-order, one-size-only start-up built by two friends figuring it out along the way.
Sister has grown up now. We used to make every garment by hand but eventually we expanded to meet our demand. We still manufacture everything in Melbourne, and our ethos of being a small, locally minded label still rings true, even after close to a decade in business.
It’s been getting harder to ignore the noise of the outside world, though. The pressure on fashion labels to fall into line when it comes to “holidays” like Black Friday is unfair. We’re expected to concede to the bigger, louder players in the space. We’re at the whim of social media platforms and have to fight our way around fast fashion companies and their unrivalled budgets the other 51 weeks in a year too.
Since Sister’s inception we’ve never participated in Black Friday, but I can feel people’s expectations that we do growing. This year in particular, I’m surprised at the volume of Instagram DMs and emails we’ve received about it. To each of the 50+ messages, I explain to customers that we’re a small label and that Black Friday doesn’t align with our brand values. Sometimes we’re left on read, sometimes people offer their understanding.
The thing is, I’m not against sales. We have a fair few sales at Sister, but we like doing it on our own terms. I’ve worked at other fashion brands where frequent discounting was part of their strategy, and that was factored into their pricing.
But I don’t like the insistence that fashion labels have to discount their clothes for Black Friday. Our overheads and costs are already high, and our profit margins are tight, especially as a brand that manufactures locally.
My biggest grievance with Black Friday is that it promotes overconsumption culture, where sales are not a nice add-on, but something people feel entitled to. It incentivises a “buy now, think later” mindset. I think Black Friday encourages buying for the sake of buying. Retail therapy feels good, but at what cost?
I do think people can take a more mindful approach to Black Friday. We’re in a cost-of-living crisis, so I understand every dollar counts. If I needed a new – say, fridge – or another big-ticket item, I’d probably hold out for sales like these. But I don’t think clothes necessarily fall into that category. We’ve grown accustomed to being able to buy half a dozen new garments for $50 and that shouldn’t be the norm.
I want to see people really thinking about an item before deciding to buy it. Don’t go out of your way to find a purchase. That’s my biggest piece of advice ahead of Black Friday. If you really need something, you’ll know exactly what you’re trying to find. If you’re scrolling and scrolling online, trying to find something to spend your money on, you’re probably going to regret that purchase.
More businesses are taking a stance against Black Friday too. Canadian-based beauty brand DECIEM has been protesting Black Friday for the past few years. Instead it embraces “Slowvember”, its month-long sales period to combat compulsive shopping. Locally, some brands are speaking out. Swimwear label It’s Now Cool publicly shared it wouldn’t be taking part in Black Friday or Cyber Monday this year. Melbourne label Kuwaii released a Black Friday “survival guide” with tips on how to shop mindfully.
Northcote-based boutique Before March took to Instagram to ask, “What happens when we homogenise a sale season …? We create a culture that values price comparison and come to expect sales like clockwork, placing undue pressure on small businesses to partake in big sales events that don’t reflect their values.”
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