Who Is Amanda McCarty and What is Clotheshorse?

Born during the darkest days of the pandemic, Clotheshorse The Podcast, took everyone behind the scenes of Fast Fashion...what REALLY goes on to make us soooo addicted we stop caring about the people who make the clothing.

Amanda McCarty, the creator of Clotheshorse has worked retail her whole life. She's worked on the floor, she's worked in the head offices, she's been a consumer like me. 

Amanda paves a path, both for people to get more conscious about their clothing consumption consumption, but also to get more conscious about working in retail. 

Retail and wholesale is the largest employment sector in both Canada and the US employing more people than agriculture or manufacturing or healthcare! It's huge. 

But as you might know, retail is under a huge transformation...some even call it The Retail Apocalypse!  By 2030, a mere 7 years from now, there will likely be 1 MILLION fewer jobs in retail than there are now.  In fact, Retail may lose it's crown as the largest employment sector.

So what to do?  How do we transition out of a retail culture into whatever is next (a warehouse culture?!)

I asked Amanda and she has some sage advice for people trying to transition out of retail.
So who is Amanda McCarty and what is Clotheshorse?
Let's go inside and find out.

Enjoying the podcast? I am fiercely independent, and rely on listeners like you to help me stick around.
Can you share the episode on social media, or write a
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review in Apple podcasts?! I would be so grateful.

Transcript

Who is Amanda McCarty and What is Clotheshorse?

[00:00:00] Miranda Black: As an independent clothing store owner and as a shopper, I used to hear all these rumors about fast fashion. The sly tricks they'd use to make their clothing cheaper, how they'd steal ideas from small businesses or patterns from indie artists. It was always rumor. I've never known someone who worked inside the system of fast fashion.

[00:00:20] Miranda Black: And, you know, I always knew when a corporation was in my store to steal ideas. They'd show up in a group of three or four, they'd be dressed really well in suits and ties, often a briefcase or two, but no one would try anything on. They weren't buying, they were appraising. And they'd be whispering to each other, lots of fake smiles, assuring me, we don't need any help, we're just looking around. They'd take some pictures, they were brazen about how obvious they were. And then they would just leave. And I knew that they got something from me, I just didn't know what, or how they would use it. Because like I said, I never knew anyone who worked inside the system, inside the corporate offices of [00:01:00] big fashion, and I'm gonna call it big fashion instead of fast fashion, because there's a bias that if it's luxury, then it's ethical.

[00:01:07] Miranda Black: That the luxury goes beyond the price tag and the label and the glossy ads and it trickles down to everyone involved. It's such a price, they must be paying their workers fairly. Well, I'd argue that all big fashion is now in the business of fast fashion. 

[00:01:25] Miranda Black: But I digress: I've never personally known anyone who worked behind the scenes, pulling the strings that make big fashion. Enter Clotheshorse! Born during the darkest days of the pandemic, Clotheshorse is a podcast, a website, an Instagram account. That's how I first found it: I was immediately drawn in by these retro kittens, think vintage Cottonelle ads in Women's Day Magazine. White fluffy kittens, but they were saying stuff like, don't be an asshole! Or fast fashion loves to use the term circularity in it's greenwashing campaigns, let's break it [00:02:00] down!

[00:02:00] Miranda Black: It's complicated messaging, but it's a kitten and it's cute and the kitten was telling the dirty secrets. Taking people behind the curtain to show them what was really going on, and confirming the rumors were really true, that this nefarious stuff really did go on, worse than I had ever imagined.

[00:02:19] Miranda Black: Well, the brains behind those cute kittens is Amanda McCarty, the creator of Clotheshorse. Amanda's worked retail her whole life. She's worked on the floor, she's worked in the head offices of Fast Fashion. She's been a consumer like me, and at the beginning of the Pandemic, she was like that famous movie quote:

[00:02:38] Miranda Black: she was mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore. So she started to dish. She took listeners and followers behind the scenes of what really goes down from the manipulative advertising, to not paying workers even when they had plenty of money in the bank, to the toxic chemicals they knowingly use even on kids' clothing.

[00:02:59] Miranda Black: And [00:03:00] now, almost three years later, , she's still airing all the dirty laundry. 

[00:03:04] Miranda Black: And she's also paving a path, both for people to get more conscious about their consumption, but also to get more conscious about working in retail. 

[00:03:12] Miranda Black: Cuz a lot of us have been there, even if it was just a high school job. In fact, retail and wholesale, it is the largest employment sector in both Canada and the US employing more people than agriculture or manufacturing or healthcare! It's huge. 

[00:03:30] Miranda Black: Shopping has employed a lot of people. It's where teens learn to have their first job. It's where most people get their start managing, reporting to superiors. It's been a massive training ground for tens of millions of us. Not to mention it teaches us how to fold a shirt. 

[00:03:46] Miranda Black: Retail trade, launches, more people into employment than any other sector, and it's been the backbone of North American employment for decades now. 

[00:03:55] Miranda Black: Traditionally, retail employment growth was similar to overall [00:04:00] employment growth, meaning it grew or contracted at the same rate as all other jobs. But in 2017, that started to change. Retail employment began to decline while the rest of the economy was healthy, and that decline is protected to continue in a pretty significant way.

[00:04:18] Miranda Black: So much so that by 2030 there will be almost 1 million fewer retail jobs for people, and retail is probably gonna lose its crown as the biggest employment sector. 

[00:04:29] Miranda Black: So what are we all gonna do? Where will we learn how to anxiously go up to that first customer and bravely say, can I help you with that? Well, I sat down with Amanda McCarty to ask her how she started Clotheshorse and why? What she thinks about the great retail decline, some ideas on how to transition outta retail and the juicy behind the scenes reality of fast fashion. So who is Amanda McCarty and what is Clotheshorse? 

[00:04:57] Amanda McCarty: [00:05:00] All right. There we go. 

[00:05:06] Miranda Black: Hi. Hi. You are the podcast queen, so I appreciate you helping me through that. Oh my gosh, 

[00:05:12] Amanda McCarty: of course. There's no place to learn this stuff, you know what I mean?

[00:05:14] Amanda McCarty: Like you have to learn it from other people, or Google, I guess. I don't know. It's not, there's not a, there's not a support network really. No. For learning podcasting skills. 

[00:05:23] Miranda Black: That is the mantra of the day. . So I started thinking about retail and the future of retail, which I think about all the time. , right?

[00:05:32] Amanda McCarty: Me too. 

[00:05:33] Miranda Black: I read this really sort of crazy statistic about where retail's going, but before we get into that, I would love to know how you started Clotheshorse, because you're in a bit of a unique position to be talking about fast fashion and fashion in general. 

[00:05:51] Amanda McCarty: Sure. I began by working retail like a lot of people after, you know, I have, I have a daughter, uh, her father passed away a few months before she was [00:06:00] born, and it kind of set my life upside down. When we, when the dust settled, which I'm giving you the very abbreviated version, but when the dust settled, we moved across the country to Portland, Oregon where there were no jobs, right?

[00:06:11] Amanda McCarty: I had been working as a graphic designer for a nonprofit before then, and the, there was nothing for me. And so after six months of selling all my stuff, like the level of financial anxiety, was unbearable. I got a part-time job at, I'll just say the name, Urban Outfitters, and only because they were definitely gonna say no to me when I walked in with a stroller.

[00:06:32] Miranda Black: Oh gosh. 

[00:06:32] Amanda McCarty: They were, my gosh, definitely gonna say no. But I said I worked for Urban Outfitters in college, which was true, and then suddenly I had a job. So I worked in that same store for several years. I worked my way up to department manager and I had reached this point where I think, and I think anybody who is listening to this, who has worked retail, has reached where you're just like, I can't do it anymore.

[00:06:52] Amanda McCarty: Like I am so exhausted. Mentally. 

[00:06:55] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:06:55] Amanda McCarty: Physically, emotionally. Um, and I feel stuck. This is when people reach out to me [00:07:00] about where they are in their career in retail, stuck is always the word. 

[00:07:03] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:07:04] Amanda McCarty: that is in every message. Right. And I was kind of like, okay, maybe I will go to school to be a nurse. Which I look back now and I'm like, maybe not the best career fit for me, um, because I'm really anxious and squeamish, but I felt like, okay, I'm gonna be doing something that makes an impact.

[00:07:18] Amanda McCarty: It's like really consistent employment, you know? It's something I definitely am smart enough to handle and I do love learning new things. So this seems like a good fit. And so I was, was starting to explore going back to school in the fall to become a nurse. And around that time we had a bunch of executives fly into our store, which was very far away from the home office to, you know, visit and see what, how our business was.

[00:07:40] Amanda McCarty: And I did a walkthrough where I really talked about where our product was coming up short, what was great and what we should be expanding upon, and other ideas that I'd had. And at the end of the walkthrough, the head of allocation and planning for the company said, how would you like to come to Philly and be a buyer for us?

[00:07:57] Amanda McCarty: And I laughed because that was absurd. How would that [00:08:00] even happen? Right? 

[00:08:00] Miranda Black: Wow. 

[00:08:00] Amanda McCarty: Like I, I don't even, at that point I was like, I don't even know what a buyer does. 

[00:08:04] Miranda Black: Right. 

[00:08:05] Amanda McCarty: Right? And I sort of laughed and I said, sure. But it seemed wild to me that that would happen. But then a few weeks later, I was flying to Philadelphia for a day of interviewing and it was kind of a job that I just couldn't turn down obviously, because like I felt stuck.

[00:08:17] Amanda McCarty: It was basically like, try out this job or go to nursing school. 

[00:08:21] Amanda McCarty: So that was the sliding doors moment of my life where I decided to take the job in buying. And you know, I took that job not really knowing at all what it was. I asked the person who interviewed me, who later was my boss, what my job would be. What I would do.

[00:08:36] Amanda McCarty: And she kind of fumbled around for an answer and said, well, there's a lot of emails, sometimes you answer the phone and I, you know, other stuff. And I was like, wow. I mean, I know how to use email, so this is great . Um, and yeah, it turned out, you know, it was a lot of things that I really loved. It was using a lot of data to make decisions and a lot, a lot of math and strategy.

[00:08:57] Amanda McCarty: And 

[00:08:57] Miranda Black: did she tell, did she mention the amount of math that [00:09:00] it would be? 

[00:09:00] Amanda McCarty: No, not at all. Not at all. I will tell you that, and I know that you have a background in retail too, so this is not gonna surprise you: I was the first person that that company had brought from the stores to work in the home office in more than 10 years.

[00:09:12] Amanda McCarty: And there was definitely this idea that people who worked in the stores were not smart enough to work in corporate. 

[00:09:16] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:09:16] Amanda McCarty: Right. And hiring me had definitely been something they'd been forced to do. Someone above them, the people who had met me in Portland, and I think everybody was assuming that I was gonna fail.

[00:09:25] Amanda McCarty: And then it turned out like, not to brag, but I'm like the best buyer ever because I'm really good at math and critical thinking, but I also really understand customers and customer. 

[00:09:35] Miranda Black: And you were on the floor, you were in the. 

[00:09:37] Amanda McCarty: Yeah. I had like the best training ever, right? 

[00:09:39] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:09:40] Amanda McCarty: But yeah, exactly. And no one that I worked with had ever worked retail before, so they didn't even understand the customer experience.

[00:09:47] Miranda Black: Wow. 

[00:09:47] Amanda McCarty: Or I would bring up things to them like, well, you know why that's happening because of X, Y, Z. And they would be like, wait, what? That happens? 

[00:09:53] Amanda McCarty: And so I do think that like having this wide breadth of experience really set me up for a successful career in [00:10:00] buying. And so I worked for that same company for 10 years and a couple years before the pandemic, I was approached by a company to help them launch their new rental brand. They really sold it to me by the, you know, this idea of it being much more sustainable and better for the planet. And I, I went back and forth on the job. I definitely at one point told UO that I'm not taking the job, but then ultimately I did take the job and it was okay.

[00:10:23] Amanda McCarty: It turned out to be very disappointing in a lot of ways. It wasn't as sustainable as it was being sold to me. And at the beginning of the pandemic, they laid me off immediately. I was the only person from the buying team that was laid off, and I was the first person hired for the buying team. So it was very painful.

[00:10:38] Amanda McCarty: Ultimately, I just was not a cultural fit. I was constantly pushing for more ethical and sustainable barriers that this company just going to execute. And in a nice way, I'm, I'm a, I'm quite a diplomat with having these kind of conversations, but I think that no one wanted to have it. And at the beginning of the pandemic, we were asked to cancel every single thing we had on order.

[00:10:56] Amanda McCarty: And I said, you know, This is bad. This is, people are gonna starve [00:11:00] because of this, right? People are gonna lose their businesses. Workers are gonna lose their homes. Like this is really, we can't, we gotta think of something else. You know? We have a hundred million dollars in the bank. Why aren't we just paying for these orders?

[00:11:11] Amanda McCarty: I'm sorry, my cat's gonna walk by now. Um, and I think that that was like the last straw. So I got laid off in the middle of a global pandemic. Pretty advanced in my career where there are not gonna be easy jobs for me to get right away. They gave me two weeks of severance, which was wild. 

[00:11:24] Miranda Black: Oof. 

[00:11:25] Amanda McCarty: Uh, they caught off my health insurance immediately during a global pandemic.

[00:11:28] Miranda Black: Oh myGod. 

[00:11:28] Amanda McCarty: And they could have afforded to give me insurance. And there was definitely a period of about a month where I just laid on the couch and felt miserable and played the sims and thought my life was over. 

[00:11:38] Miranda Black: And at this point, Clotheshorse wasn't a twinkle in your eye? 

[00:11:41] Amanda McCarty: No. No. But I'd started to think about it a little bit.

[00:11:45] Amanda McCarty: I would see all of these conversations happening on social media about the, like glamor of fashion. And it's been something I've been hearing my whole life and I, I said, you know, I'm in a unique position in that I have nothing to lose now. Right? And I know the real [00:12:00] truth about all of this, and I have all these friends who feel the same way, who've been working in this industry for a long time and are tired of it being dismissed as this like Devil Wears product glamorous, "more important than anything else" kind of industry. And I wonder if we could do something with this.

[00:12:14] Amanda McCarty: Now, as I mentioned to you before we started recording, I am in a very lucky position in that my husband is a professional audio engineer. So I said, I've been thinking about starting a podcast about fashion, like, what do you think? And he, he of course like was like, yeah, this is a great idea. I'm very lucky in the partner department, he's very supportive. 

[00:12:31] Amanda McCarty: But the thing is, you can say you're gonna start a podcast. There's so much to learn about how to make a podcast and how it works, as you know. 

[00:12:40] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:12:40] Amanda McCarty: where it lives and how you promote it, and how you record it and all, how you produce it, all of this stuff.

[00:12:46] Amanda McCarty: I was really lucky to have him teach me how to do audio editing and all these other things and set me up with some really nice equipment that I definitely would not have bought as an unemployed person. I started recording episodes and you know, all of my friends who worked in the industry were super stoked and [00:13:00] supportive.

[00:13:01] Amanda McCarty: But it was really a few months later where it just started to pick up momentum where I was reaching other people who I didn't know and it helped me start to shape my mission, which in the beginning was like, I'm gonna pull back this curtain. But it evolved into like, and I'm gonna show you to feel better and do better, and feel motivated and supported.

[00:13:22] Amanda McCarty: Yeah. So that's where I am. That was two and a half years ago. 

[00:13:25] Miranda Black: When you got kind of called up to be in corporate, did you at that point in time have an illusion like, now I've made it, now I'm, now I'm in the glamorous side of things? 

[00:13:37] Amanda McCarty: I definitely, I, I remember so specifically this daydream I was having over and over again in the weeks as I was preparing to move across the country for this job where I would like go to dinner parties with my coworkers and everybody would be like wanting to talk about art and national public radio, and everybody would be so dressed and they would know things about wine, which I don't know.

[00:13:57] Amanda McCarty: And very, very disappointing [00:14:00] when I actually got there because... you know, for one, the raise I got to move from being a department manager to an assistant buyer was like $3,000 to live in a place. Exponentially more expensive. So now I was broke, right? There would be days where I would, after rent and all my other bills, I would have $4 left and that had to cover food and public transportation just wasn't, just wasn't working.

[00:14:22] Amanda McCarty: It was very, that first year was very, very hard financially and very, very lonely. And so a lot of times I was like, what, what have I done? Because we had a big, we had like a campus and we had a big cafeteria. And in the beginning I would just go sit there alone every day at lunchtime and eat my lunch alone.

[00:14:38] Amanda McCarty: No one would come and say hi to me. It wasn't like a friendly, it was like a mean high school for like hipster people. So no one would come and talk to me and my boss although she sat 10 feet away from me, would go days without speaking to me. She would communicate to me via email, and so there would be days where I did not speak to another human being.

[00:14:56] Amanda McCarty: It was very, very strange, very lonely, and could [00:15:00] not have been more different than the team I worked with in the stores where everybody was so, Smart, so passionate and creative, and everybody was always working on all kinds of cool things outside of work and had a lot to talk about. And we were all close because we worked so closely together and supported one another.

[00:15:15] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:15:15] Amanda McCarty: These are people who are still my friends years later. Right. And we. . I didn't get, I'd never had that in the buying department, or at least not for a very long time. I'll say. 

[00:15:24] Miranda Black: Yeah, that's something, 

[00:15:25] Amanda McCarty: it was hard. 

[00:15:25] Miranda Black: That's something unique to, well, I've waitressed a lot as well. There's a little bit of that same feel there that people have outside projects. But in retail, I guess, cuz there's a lot of time when there's nobody in the store and so you're 

[00:15:38] Amanda McCarty: folding and stuff. Yeah. 

[00:15:40] Miranda Black: You do become like a bit of a family. 

[00:15:42] Amanda McCarty: Mm-hmm. 

[00:15:42] Miranda Black: that's a nice thing about retail. So when I started this, I was saying how I found these statistics about how many people lost their job

[00:15:51] Miranda Black: during the pandemic in retail in specific. But a lot of people left. 7.5 million retail workers [00:16:00] left the industry in 2021. So not even 2020 when it was due to the pandemic. 

[00:16:06] Amanda McCarty: Mm-hmm. , 

[00:16:06] Miranda Black: uh, this is more like a come to Jesus moment where like, what, what am I doing here? 

[00:16:12] Amanda McCarty: Oh, for sure, for sure. Like I will say that I have seen what it means to be a retail worker change in this century as retailers, were trying to maximize profitability by selling things at lower prices, basically, like that's, that's the fast fashion-ification of all of retail. All of retail, right? Whether you sell clothes or not, that customers wanted things to be cheaper than they'd been in the past.

[00:16:37] Amanda McCarty: And that meant, of course, that these companies tightened their belts in other ways. And where they primarily did that was with their workforce, right?

[00:16:44] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:16:45] Amanda McCarty: And so I know a lot of, and I don't know if all of these things are legal in Canada, but in, in the United States, there's definitely been a, like an anything goes, it's like the wild, wild west of retail.

[00:16:54] Amanda McCarty: So for example, suddenly on-call shifts became like a thing here where you were [00:17:00] supposed to keep your schedule clear for that day, like your personal schedule and you may or may not get to go to work that day. So you might get to work 40 hours this week, you might get to work 20, you might go to work and then be sent home cuz business was slow. 

[00:17:13] Miranda Black: Here you have to be paid four hours. 

[00:17:16] Amanda McCarty: Uh, not here. I know states have changed that. Some states have changed it and, and I hope to see that continue, but generally you could go into work for two hours and then get sent home and or clear your schedule for the whole day and not get any work.

[00:17:28] Miranda Black: So I was actually wrong about minimum hours here in Ontario, where I live. And I just want to correct the record because it's kind of interesting how we went from employment Shangri-La to Shangrila lost all because of a change in government. It's a great example of why voting matters. Okay. So the bill passed, it was law in the previous liberal government and it mandated that you had to be paid a minimum three hours. If your shift was canceled less than 48 hours before you had to work, [00:18:00] you didn't even have to show up. You got paid even if your employer was like, yeah, we don't need you after all. 

[00:18:05] Miranda Black: And on-call shifts they were paid a minimum of three hours, whether you went in or not. Employers had to pay for the right to reserve your time. It was amazing! 

[00:18:16] Miranda Black: Then we voted in a right wing government who like most right-wing governments all across the world, pretend to be on the side of the little guy, but alas friend, they are not. 

[00:18:27] Miranda Black: Ford, he did not like that bill. And the bill was repealed. So now you get paid three hours if you physically show up for the job and then they send you home, but they can call you an hour before your shift and tell you they don't need you. Because the company saves money that day and you, you get bubkis. 

[00:18:45] Miranda Black: Well, you do get dollar beer, which was a promise made and delivered. So huzzah for us. 

[00:18:51] Amanda McCarty: I know

[00:18:51] Amanda McCarty: the on-call shift thing I find infuriating. It's so unfair to people. Because they are people with lives and needs, and if [00:19:00] they can't work for you that day, they need to be able to go work for someone else so they can make a living. 

[00:19:04] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:19:04] Amanda McCarty: or go to the doctor or whatever they need. Not sit around waiting to find it if they're gonna go to work.

[00:19:09] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. . 

[00:19:10] Amanda McCarty: Um, it's really, really unfair. Right. And I know some states here are putting a stop to that and I hope that that continues, but that was one way that retailers tightened their belt because the goal was: whatever you spent on your payroll this year, you should spend less next year. 

[00:19:24] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:19:24] Amanda McCarty: And the year after that, you should spend even less and on and on and on.

[00:19:27] Amanda McCarty: And if you do that for 10 or 15 years, suddenly the budget for payroll for your retail staff, half of what it used to be. And I saw that even playing out in the store that I once worked in because it was a huge store. Two floors, a front entrance and a back entrance. 

[00:19:42] Miranda Black: Oof.

[00:19:42] Amanda McCarty: two sets of fitting rooms. And when I was working there, we had say, eight people who would come in and open the store.

[00:19:48] Amanda McCarty: Suddenly it was two or three. The workload didn't decrease. There was still just as much shipment and just as many customers. So that's one way that retailers have really tightened their belt. 

[00:19:59] Amanda McCarty: The other [00:20:00] is to Prevent people from being full-time and qualifying for benefits. So even, even back when I was a department manager, one of my jobs is I wrote the schedule for the whole store.

[00:20:10] Amanda McCarty: It'd be like 50 employees. I had a a basket where people would put in their time off requests, and then I would take it home and sit on the rug on the floor and dump this out. It was like a big logic problem. And I would be told by our store manager, listen, such and such is getting close to full-time status because they've been working more than 35 hours for the past six weeks.

[00:20:30] Amanda McCarty: So can you just give them 10 hours this week? How? How fair is that? How are you supposed to make a living? Oh, doing that. Right. And 

[00:20:38] Amanda McCarty: it also, 

[00:20:38] Miranda Black: or Or advance, like you can never get, 

[00:20:40] Amanda McCarty: yeah. Yeah. And so just so many of those dirty tricks. 

[00:20:44] Miranda Black: Well, the reason I wanted to talk to you about this particular decline is, You are creating an alternate career, perhaps. From the outside, it looks like that. And I often wonder [00:21:00] how are we going to still earn money and sell stuff in a de-growth economy? 

[00:21:06] Miranda Black: Is it creating your own thing? I might be expendable by 2030. Retail might not need me, so what else can I do? I don't wanna stock stuff for Amazon, so, because 

[00:21:17] Amanda McCarty: No, I hear that. I hear that. I have also been in that position where about a year into the pandemic, like no one would hire me because I have this very specific experience and I couldn't even get a job at Target, even though I'd worked copious amounts of retail because they were like, you haven't worked retail recently and you have this professional career, why would we hire you?

[00:21:34] Amanda McCarty: You're gonna leave. 

[00:21:34] Miranda Black: Right. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:21:35] Amanda McCarty: And so I was like, oh my God, I'm gonna have to go work at the Amazon warehouse. Which is not to say that I think I'm too good for that work. 

[00:21:41] Miranda Black: Of Of course not. 

[00:21:42] Amanda McCarty: I just Know that it is really brutal and un it's bad. It's a bad job, right? 

[00:21:46] Miranda Black: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:21:47] Amanda McCarty: Um, and it just breaks you physically and mentally over time.

[00:21:50] Amanda McCarty: And I was like, here we go again. Another abusive workplace for me. 

[00:21:53] Amanda McCarty: I think that's a really good question though, because I get so many messages from people who are working retail right now [00:22:00] and they feel so stuck and they don't know what they can do next or that they can do next. And I will say that when I was working retail, anytime I would have the bandwidth to apply for another job, I could feel that even though I had learned so many skills from working retail, that the people who were considering me for this other job doing something different, assumed that I wasn't smart or didn't have those skills. And I think that's because we think, and I'm not, when I say we, I don't mean you and me cuz we know otherwise, but many people regard retail as unskilled work.

[00:22:32] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:33] Amanda McCarty: And we know that that is not true. We know that you are learning how to do HR, you are managing all kinds of financial decisions. You have to have people skills that are like so dialed in and multitasking, and you have to be smart to succeed in retail, you have to be smart. 

[00:22:50] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:22:50] Amanda McCarty: Okay.

[00:22:51] Miranda Black: Quick 

[00:22:51] Amanda McCarty: and. Quick yeah. A very quick learner. Very good critical thinking skills. Uh, you have to be able to handle a lot of things all at [00:23:00] once, and I would ask people who are worried about what they're gonna do next outside of retail: I want you to start thinking about it now, and I want you to make a list of the skills that you've used on a daily basis.

[00:23:11] Amanda McCarty: I want you to see how that aligns with what you'd like to do and identify the steps in between. So, for example, I worked with a store manager who worked for the company for like 10, 15 years in the retail space, like in the stores. Worked her way up from sales associate to department manager to store manager.

[00:23:27] Amanda McCarty: And she was like, I'm reaching burnout. I cannot continue to work 80 hours a week. I don't know what to do next. And I said, you know, like, what's your favorite part of our job? You, you don't hate it all, right? And she's like, you know what? What I really like is the HR element of it, of like coaching people and helping them with their benefits.

[00:23:43] Amanda McCarty: You know, helping them figure out what to do next and helping them solve problems. And I was like, maybe you need to become an HR professional? And she was like, whoa. I never thought of that. Right? And so she started applying for jobs and she took some like seminars on HR stuff to like plump up her resume. And now she's been working in [00:24:00] HR for like five or six years for several awesome companies and she loves it.

[00:24:03] Amanda McCarty: And I personally, HR? Not the job path I'm gonna choose. but out of the store, out of retail, companies are always gonna need HR. She's actually in a more secure place now. 

[00:24:13] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:24:13] Amanda McCarty: With a consistent, manageable schedule, which as you know, is not something that happens when you work retail. So yeah, what a great shift for her. Right? 

[00:24:22] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:24:22] Amanda McCarty: Like I, for me, becoming a buyer was like a lightning strike kind of thing, not a standard thing, but that doesn't mean if that's something you're interested in doing, you can't do that either. You just need to start having those conversations with your district manager, you know? Being aware of job openings.

[00:24:39] Amanda McCarty: I mean, these kinds of jobs are still gonna exist. I would also say like Part of de-growth is going to be changing our economy into a more small economy, right? Where rather than having a few humongous companies like Amazon, like Walmart. You know, in the United States, more than half of the food groceries bought every year is from Walmart, [00:25:00] which blows my mind. 

[00:25:01] Miranda Black: yeah. 

[00:25:01] Amanda McCarty: Because they have so much control over pricing of food here in the United States. I, what I wanna see is those large companies go away and be replaced by hundreds of thousands of small businesses, which are a livelihood for both the owners and their handful of employees.

[00:25:17] Amanda McCarty: And I think this is also a really great time if you, if owning your own business is something that you've dreamed of, now's the time to start getting those skills and start planning it out and getting it started. 

[00:25:27] Miranda Black: Yeah, because they're not going to protect you in the end. Not only is it no miserable when you're doing it, when it's over, you're not gonna have pension or no any of those things. So

[00:25:38] Amanda McCarty: absolutely not, and I think that's important to call out. I remember a year or two into working. Sitting in the break room with my friend Alana, and she said, you know, Amanda, if Mitch, that was our dm, if Mitch had to choose between being able to expense his lunch every day or having you as an employee, meaning that if he wants to keep his lunch, he has to fire you, he's gonna choose his lunch every single time.

[00:25:59] Amanda McCarty: [00:26:00] And I was like, whoa, that is really dark. I work like 40 or 50 hours a week in this place. Don't say it! But she was right. As a retail worker, I felt super disposable and I would hear the language coming from my district managers, like hiring more people than you needed with the plan of getting rid of them, that kind of thing.

[00:26:16] Amanda McCarty: But even as a buyer in the corporate office where I was making this company so much money responsible for tens of millions of dollars worth of business every day I knew was disposable. They would cut me and never think of me again. That is just how it was, and that is ultimately what happened to me at the beginning of the pandemic.

[00:26:35] Amanda McCarty: And you know, obviously I'm in a little bit of a more privileged situation where I have a partner who still had a job, but. So many workers in fashion and retail from the people who

[00:26:43] Amanda McCarty: make the things that we buy to the people who

[00:26:45] Amanda McCarty: work in the warehouses,

[00:26:46] Amanda McCarty: at the ports, 

[00:26:48] Amanda McCarty: in the

[00:26:48] Amanda McCarty: stores and in the 

[00:26:49] Amanda McCarty: corporate offices, found out how disposable they were at the beginning of the pandemic,

[00:26:53] Amanda McCarty: and I hope that none of us forget that. I'm always like,

[00:26:56] Amanda McCarty: hold a grudge about that. Mm-hmm. do you not [00:27:00] forgive Corporate America for showing you what they really think of us. 

[00:27:03] Miranda Black: We'll be right back after this small local business commercial. If you're a Jenny from the block or a Johnny from the block and you want a new rock, you should check out, made you look jewelry. It's one of those "where have you been all my life" stores. Now if you're also a Jenny or Johnny from the block who likes your bling made fairly by willing participants then made you look is for you. 

[00:27:24] Miranda Black: The artists, gemologists? alchemists?! Okay, they're jewelers... they work right on site giving you confidence that your precious was made by consenting adults. 

[00:27:34] Miranda Black: One of the things that I love on the Made You Look website is being able to ask real time questions to actual staff working the floor of the website, just like you're walking into a real store. You can ask anything like how heavy is that bracelet? Will that ring fit my fiance's finger? What gems go best with pink hair? Hint. Hint. Made you look jewelry. For all the Jenny's and Johnny's from the block who love feeling good about their rocks. 

[00:27:59] Miranda Black: Can I get [00:28:00] a little bit behind the scenes of. Clotheshorse now, like kind of a, what is this place? Clotheshorse? 

[00:28:05] Amanda McCarty: Sure. 

[00:28:06] Miranda Black: You're the podcast and you have an amazing Instagram. I mostly dial in through your Instagram and your posts and your, I'm gonna call it education. And then you also have resources on your website. And there's advertising on your podcast, but is that the only income, like Clotheshorse as a business, how? What? How are you going, how do you make money? What do you, what's, what's your business plan?! 

[00:28:31] Amanda McCarty: I'll start this by saying, I consult with small businesses and teach a series of small business classes called Small Biz Big Pick. And I will tell you that if one of my clients or one of my students brought me Clotheshorses finances and income stream and asked me for advice, I would say this is a highly unsuccessful business.

[00:28:48] Amanda McCarty: Clotheshorse does not make any money. The little bit of advertising and patrons I have cover the expenses, which are very expensive. Being a podcast that is in this social justice [00:29:00] area, I really feel that pressure to make Clotheshorse as accessible as possible. So I spend a lot of money on transcripting, videos with subtitles, so it's expensive.

[00:29:10] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:11] Amanda McCarty: So if I were to survive off of Clotheshorse, well the short answer is I could not. So I do have a day job. I actually work as, head of product for a company that is like a chain of, now we have 70 locations of gift shops. 

[00:29:23] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:29:24] Amanda McCarty: in malls. I started doing that a little bit more than a year ago. I did an interview at that time with the New York Times about work I was doing to help people with the unemployment system and some advocacy work I was doing there and I started getting messages from this woman blowing me up on every social media platform, including the Clotheshorse Instagram. How she really wanted to talk to me. And so finally I said, okay, like what do you wanna talk about? And she said, listen, I am running this business. We wanna be ethical and sustainable and meaningful, we would really love to hire you. 

[00:29:51] Amanda McCarty: And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay, listen, I have a lot of workplace trauma and I am not looking for a full-time job per se yet. Cause at that point I was building a [00:30:00] pretty good consulting business. I didn't need to. Um, I said, fly me down to Austin for a week, pay for it, pay me and I will give you advice on your business and help you figure out a plan but I don't wanna come and work there.

[00:30:11] Amanda McCarty: But of course, as soon as I got here, she was like, okay, well, like, will you take this job? 

[00:30:16] Amanda McCarty: And ultimately I said, you know what? I, after a week with everyone and seeing that I was gonna be able to have a pretty significant impact, an opportunity to see how all my highfalutin ideas could play out

[00:30:27] Miranda Black: mm-hmm. 

[00:30:27] Amanda McCarty: in real life, I said you can offer me a job. And so then I, you know, started working there. So it's been about a year. And when you wanna talk about progress, not perfection, that is the situation that I am, am in. But we have already done so many things on the retail side to expand benefits to our store employees.

[00:30:43] Amanda McCarty: Like the company didn't even have, a parental leave policy. So we worked that in, we've eliminated all bags in our store. 

[00:30:51] Miranda Black: Wow. 

[00:30:51] Amanda McCarty: they have to bring their own bag. I know that one was, I'm excited about it. I was surprised and delighted to see that there was very little customer pushback. [00:31:00] We were like bracing ourselves.

[00:31:01] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:31:01] Amanda McCarty: So we got rid of all packaging. We're minimizing our plastic packaging from our vendors. And another thing that I've done is, and this is like where we're making a lot of progress, specifically right now, is to move away from these larger companies and start buying from small businesses and makers.

[00:31:16] Amanda McCarty: And so that's been ramping up every month. My dream is that in another year, our stores will feel like etsy in real life. 

[00:31:23] Miranda Black: Oh, wow. 

[00:31:24] Amanda McCarty: So just primarily maker goods and artist work. So yeah. If I didn't take that job, Clotheshorse could not exist.

[00:31:31] Miranda Black: Right. 

[00:31:31] Amanda McCarty: Like, it just, it just couldn't. Right. And I want Clotheshorse to be my full-time job.

[00:31:36] Amanda McCarty: It's, it's a, it's a difficult value proposition, right? I get approached all the time by companies who wanna advertise on Clotheshorse, and they would probably give me a lot of money to do it. And I turn them down because I don't believe with their values. Some of them are some of the most notorious greenwashing, sustainable, in quotes, brands out there. And so I have to say no to those as well. And unfortunately, while I know a lot of people enjoy Clotheshorses [00:32:00] information and rely on it and send me requests for more things all the time, very few people wanna support it financially, which is gonna be a constant struggle. You know, like 

[00:32:08] Miranda Black: mm-hmm.

[00:32:09] Amanda McCarty: people want in, think information should be free. I think a big part of that comes from us associating stuff with value. Ideas and information with no value. Like it has to be a tangible thing you can hold in your hand. 

[00:32:19] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:32:20] Amanda McCarty: to be worth money. And I hope that is a shift we see over time. But right now it means that Clotheshorse eats up all, like, I can't emphasize enough, and I don't mean this as a complaint, but like I don't have free time.

[00:32:31] Amanda McCarty: My free time is Clotheshorse and hopefully someday that will change. Or you know, maybe I'll reach a point where I just can't do it anymore. And that'll be okay too because it'll feel natural. 

[00:32:41] Miranda Black: I'm really interested in this company that you're working for that has decided to take a leap into getting rid of the plastic, getting rid of the bags. That's a big leap of faith for a company. 

[00:32:51] Amanda McCarty: I know. Company. It's really exciting. Even yesterday, we had a Thanksgiving dinner at the office, which is a kind of thing that I've experienced at every place I've worked. We've had some sort of thing [00:33:00] like that. But what was special and different is one of the things that we are getting serious about at headquarters is composting.

[00:33:06] Amanda McCarty: And we wanna be basically like new, like I, I don't know what the term is, but like zero trash over the next few years. And so we're on this path to like soon have no trash. Everything is either recycled or composted. And it was great to see how everything we used and the food was served in and everything was all completely compostable yesterday, which is just not something you see? 

[00:33:26] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:33:27] Amanda McCarty: period. Usually it's a ton of plastic cups and plastic utensils and plastic plates and everything we used was compostable or recyclable or reusable. Those kinds of things, they just like warm my heart so much. 

[00:33:39] Miranda Black: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:33:39] Amanda McCarty: Uh, and it's exciting to work there. I mean, these things, they're gonna take a long time.

[00:33:43] Amanda McCarty: Anyone who tells you right now, That is a larger company, that they are 100% sustainable or super green or eco-friendly or any other nonsense like that is lying to you because it's just not that simple. With the systems we live within, it's gonna take time. 

[00:33:57] Miranda Black: Yeah. It's more of a gradual [00:34:00] journey and it's not just like a Well, now we're sustainable. I know we weren't last week. 

[00:34:04] Amanda McCarty: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And I see like that kind of, I don't hyperbole out there and I'm like, oh, you are so. Crap. You know? . 

[00:34:12] Miranda Black: Yeah. Yeah. It is not like we just said, with your company that you work for, it's not a switch. Mm-hmm. on and off. It's a journey. It's amazing to hear that the employer, which, if they have 77 stores across the US did you say 77 stores?

[00:34:27] Amanda McCarty: 70. 70. 

[00:34:28] Miranda Black: It's a big company 

[00:34:29] Amanda McCarty: I know, but small in the grand scheme of retail, you know, because I'm like, that's a lot of stores. Right? But we operate a lot like a small business, and I get it now coming from other companies where we had 2, 3, 400 stores, right? Mm-hmm. . But I see us as being a game changer. Most of our stores are in malls. And so in the mall, like seriously go to a mall. I don't know how, if you've spent any time in a mall recently, but I spent a lot of time at the mall now, and it was the most time I've spent in a mall in a really long time. And I'm gonna tell you that for all of the conversation around [00:35:00] sustainability and ethics and everything else, the sea that you and I swim in, that's not reflected at the mall at all.

[00:35:06] Amanda McCarty: The mall is still like, how about some plastic? Right? . It's just like not, it's not there. Which to me is very interesting, right? Because that really points to an area of people, of places that we need to extend our, reach our community into, right? 

[00:35:21] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. . 

[00:35:22] Amanda McCarty: And so for me to be leading this team that is changing what it means to be a store at the mall is a really big deal.

[00:35:30] Amanda McCarty: Like having conversations with our customers in the mall about why we don't give out bags, it's, it starts those conversations about sustainability as a whole, right? 

[00:35:39] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:39] Amanda McCarty: bringing these small makers into our spaces exposes customers to more unique stuff that has more value and meaning than what the rest of the mall is selling them.

[00:35:49] Amanda McCarty: And when we go to a maker and we say, listen, we're gonna buy a thousand units of this thing you sell, it's a game changer for them, right? It allows them to [00:36:00] focus more on their business or quit their their day job. 

[00:36:04] Miranda Black: Mm-hmm. 

[00:36:04] Amanda McCarty: or hire someone to help them and try new things. And this is how we redistribute wealth is by fueling these things.

[00:36:11] Amanda McCarty: And I think we are in the unique position where we can make that kind of impact on all kinds of different people. And sometimes I'm like, man, I really miss when I just worked on Clotheshorse all the time. But it also feels like, wow, I am making... It's, it, it is exciting to me to say like, I'm making impact in a real tangible way with my day job, and I am also making this other impact on people I don't know by working on Clotheshorse. It gives my life a meaning It definitely did not have before. I will say that. 

[00:36:38] Miranda Black: Yeah. Um, you're glowing my mind with the mall thing because I, I don't think about malls very often. 

[00:36:44] Amanda McCarty: Right? No, me neither. Me neither. And like it is. I would urge you to go to a mall soon and walk around because it feels so unlike the spaces that we inhabit pretty regularly, whether they're like in real life or like our virtual social media spaces where [00:37:00] everybody's handing out plastic bags.

[00:37:02] Amanda McCarty: which I was like, wow, the grocery store can't even do that, do they? Right. Yeah. Uh, and there's so much packaging on everything. 

[00:37:09] Miranda Black: People are also really hungry for the change.

[00:37:13] Amanda McCarty: I think so too. 

[00:37:14] Miranda Black: I don't know if you've, if you find that, I feel like people, they don't want all the crap. They don't. Uh, maybe again, maybe I'm in, just in my bubble , it's just 

[00:37:22] Amanda McCarty: No, it does seem it's, we're getting there, right? I think it's interesting because like even the "we're not gonna hand out bags anymore" conversation, some store store staff pushed back on us. They're like, what are you trying to do? Makes customers hate us. And was like, Hey listen, here's a lot of information about bags.

[00:37:39] Amanda McCarty: I would love for you to just tell customers that. And we made like a little sign that breaks down facts about bag use both plastic and paper. And a few weeks later, someone from the store messaged me and said, you know, I just wanna thank you so much. I was scared to tell people we weren't gonna have a bag, but then when I showed them why, they said thank you. You just like [00:38:00] changed my life, made me think so differently about bags, and now I'm gonna carry a bag with me. And I was like, that's amazing. Because we can say, oh, it's just a bag. But my company alone was giving out 200,000 bags a year, 200 thousand. Right?

[00:38:12] Amanda McCarty: That's a big deal. That's a lot of bags. 

[00:38:14] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:38:14] Amanda McCarty: So these are little things, but I see that our customers are really hungry for that and excited and ready to spend their money on things that are special and not just what they're being served. 

[00:38:24] Miranda Black: Mm. 

[00:38:24] Amanda McCarty: Like we've had many, many years of really disappointing shopping, you know?

[00:38:29] Miranda Black: Yeah. 

[00:38:29] Amanda McCarty: Where we spent a lot of money and we've got a lot of stuff we didn't like. 

[00:38:31] Miranda Black: Yeah, yeah.

[00:38:32] Amanda McCarty: Yeah. I mean, retail's not gonna go away completely. We are humans. We literally do need things. 

[00:38:37] Miranda Black: Yes. 

[00:38:37] Amanda McCarty: We also psychologically need to buy things sometimes. I totally get it. We are no longer Hunter Gathering. This is a part of human existence. I just want it to be more meaningful and less extreme like it's a been you know? 

[00:38:52] Miranda Black: Thank you so much, Amanda. 

[00:38:53] Amanda McCarty: Of course! 

[00:38:54] Miranda Black: I have loved talking to you today. I could talk to you all day about retail . 

[00:38:59] Amanda McCarty: Well, I'll have to come [00:39:00] back sometime because I do, I have so many thoughts about retail . I mean, I've been doing it for a long time in a lot of different capacities, and I do believe that retail... and this isn't like some greenwashing nonsense. I mean, this: I think retail has, is in a unique position to really change the future of our planet seriously and, and educate consumers at the same time. And it's unfortunate that most retailers are just selling us greenwashing nonsense rather than like the real truth.

[00:39:27] Miranda Black: Yeah. You know, and, and ugh, and I just thought the, all those worker, all the, the retail workers, They're like the army of truth, right? 

[00:39:34] Amanda McCarty: Mm-hmm. 

[00:39:35] Miranda Black: like they can just do those little individual. 

[00:39:37] Amanda McCarty: Totally.

[00:39:37] Miranda Black: They are influencers. When you're working retail, you're an influencer, even if you're company is 

[00:39:41] Amanda McCarty: totally 

[00:39:42] Miranda Black: not embracing all of this, you can just input your little things here and there to customers like, are you sure you need that bag?

[00:39:49] Amanda McCarty: Totally, totally. I love that, and I think that's, So true. 

[00:39:53] Miranda Black: Okay. Thank you. You're, you're my new kindred spirit. 

[00:39:56] Amanda McCarty: Great. Great. Okay. I'm gonna, 

[00:39:58] Miranda Black: and then stop recording, then I exit without [00:40:00] saying a proper goodbye, . I mean, we did in real life, but I wasn't recording. That's the learning how to podcast as you go part of the lesson.

[00:40:09] Miranda Black: Okay? So if you're in retail or any job that's being squeezed, demeaned, transformed, pay attention to the small bites of joy you get. Even if they're crumbs, those crumbs might lead you in a whole other direction you're not expecting. I mean, for Hansel and Gretel, it took a bit of a harsh turn, but they ended up okay.

[00:40:29] Miranda Black: And if you have the winter blues, you hate your job. You feel like you're going nowhere. That's great because back to an agricultural metaphor, in August, your garden is overrun with flowers and sweet smells, going out with friends, outdoor concerts, long leisurely strolls. Oh my God, I love summer. But you're less likely to notice that gnawing feeling that.

[00:40:54] Miranda Black: Things aren't as good as they could be for you in winter. It's way harder to hide from your [00:41:00] true self, which is a great opportunity to discover what really matters to you. Thank you so much to Amanda McCarty for joining me, but more than that, Amanda, thank you for being such an ally for retail and fashion workers.

[00:41:15] Miranda Black: If you want more juicy behind the scenes fashion exposes, check out Clotheshorse. Follow them on Instagram. Listen to her podcast wherever you listen to podcasts, and I will see you next time.