Tuesday, January 30, 2007

How the Dixie Chicks Opened My Eyes


It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a movie or been to a concert that made me want to do something. Right now, I want to run out and buy all of their albums and some concert tickets just to show the assholes who crushed their CDs and boycotted them in 2003 that they still have it. Okay, so in a marketing sense, they’ve reached their other audience. Me, the liberal, indie rock/bluegrass lover.


I admit that in 2003 I barely knew who the Dixie Chicks were until Natalie Maines said that great remark about our President. I cheered. I live in Los Angeles, but at the time, I still felt alone in thinking that we shouldn’t go to war. When she said that remark, a country music star who I was sure was a red-state, flag waving Republican, I was elated. Of course, since I wasn’t a Dixie Chicks fan, I had no idea of how bad the repercussions were for the band at the time. Thankfully, all of the bullshit from that remark opened new musical doors and another fan base for the women.


Bigger than my get up and cheer feeling from this movie, Shut Up and Sing, is my happiness at seeing three women do what they love, be supported by incredible husbands, have children and hey, make money at it! Seeing them singing on stage, buoyed by the pure adrenaline rush the crowd gives them, made me cry. I can barely imagine feeling that way at work or about my career. I have moments of being ebullient when I am talking about different things – politics, fashion, art, creating. But, to be able to do it, make money at it AND be with your best friends? These women won the fucking lottery.


I’m realizing that I don’t really care about maternity fashion. I like childbirth. I like babies. I love clothes. I like the process of pregnancy, but selling maternity fashion? I don’t think that’s my thing. I checked out eBay today, and am putting a diaper bag up for sale to see the response. I think I'm going to cancel my spring orders later this week.


When I started the business, Revolution Maternity sounded great. I was fired up like I am now about the Dixie Chicks. I envisioned t-shirts with logos about being revolutionary and starting change. I pictured swollen, pregnant bellies covered in pro-choice t-shirts. I wanted something funky, something out there. What I got was gorgeous pictures taken by my friend Jen on a pretty site that didn’t work that great. Sometimes it charged tax, sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it said things were out of stock when they weren’t. It was one mess after another. And the final product? A site that doesn’t really inspire me.


I need a fire in my belly kind of career. I need something that inspires me and makes me so passionate that spreading the news about it is something someone is to going to tell me to shut up about. I just have to figure out what that is.

1 comment:

Heidi said...

rad. you will so get there. maybe you need to run/develop the ass-kicking, women power retail section of the new absolution. i bet there is a surprise right around the corner.