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Previous: Food label ingredient listing | Main | Next: Password reset on Sprint PCS site
November 25, 2005 12:03 AM
Broken: Old Navy sandal sticker
Richie points out:
This is part of a small sticker that came on a pair of Old Navy flip-flop style sandals:
UPPER: OTHER MATERIALS
LINING AND SOCK: OTHER MATERIALS
OUTER SOLE: OTHER MATERIALS
Apparently Old Navy doesn't want us knowing what materials they use in their sandals, or maybe they don't even know themselves. I don't know what the 'lining and sock' part refers to since these sandals are pretty basic - a strap and the sole.
Obviously Old Navy has some work to do on their sticker design.
I believe that shoe manufacturers need to explicitly state whether or not their shoes are made out of leather. If it isn't leather, then it is "other material" or just "synthetic". This simply means that their shoes are not made out of leather.
I agree that they should have used a different wording though.
I would suppose that there are materials that should be listed (like polyester, cotton, leather etc.) and a list of materials that can fall under 'other materials'. These sandals are composed entirely of 'other materials'.
There's a description of the EU standard that label is matching at the bottom of http://www.consumereducation.org.uk/shopping/english/labelling/08.htm -- note that usually you'd see symbols for the materials instead of words.
It's people. Old Navy is made out of people. They're making our footwear out of people. Next thing they'll be breeding us like cattle for food. You've gotta tell them. You've gotta tell them!
Hmmmmm... these sandals are pretty damn comfortable... Old Navy - made from the best stuff on Earth.. People!
The sandals are not nade from any of those materials. They're made of something else. Obviously, the material does not exist, because it's something other than itself.
Quote:
"The sandals are not nade from any of those materials. They're made of something else. Obviously, the material does not exist, because it's something other than itself."
So take the blue pill and think they are made from people, or the red one and forget about this post...
I totally dig the people theory. Other materials, as in, body parts one would never think of using in sandals as opposed to the body parts normally used in sandals. It's a foolproof idea.
Fewer and fewer people get the Soylent Green reference anymore. It's sad to think that line may pass out of the cultural consciousness.
If you have not seen the movie, folks, rent it. It's a great "dystopian future" SF flick and has what I consider to be two or three of the best scenes ever put on film.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0070723/
They made some good, thoughtful SF flicks in the 1970's before big budget mania took over the genre and SF movies ceased to have anything of value to say (with rare exceptions like Gattaca). Oddly, I think Charlton Heston starred in about 80% of them. ;-)
Old navy sucks- and by law they are required to inform the user/weared of materials used because of liability, please someone have an allergic reaction and instigate a lawsuit, that would be mint!
Do you know what's sad? That I only caught the Soylent Green joke because of an SNL skit I saw years ago.
The wording is broken. It should say "man-made" materials, not "other."
But then again, the 11-year old Indonesian girls who work in the Old Navy factory don't get paid enough to be expected to translate to perfect English. Maybe if we bump her salary up to 60 cents an hour she can afford better English lessons.
The label may be ambiguously worded, but that hardly makes anything "broken". Including the law, probably.
Still, Illegal or not, those sandals would worry me. what is it? it can't be anything as noname previously said, They can't be made of nothing either because that is something. Wonder what it actually is made from...?
Come on folks. It's not that complicated. Other materiels means whatever is cheapest at the time of manufacturing. I saves them from having to write things like "contains cotton, polyester or nylon"
This is the reason that I don't wear shoes (or sandals). There is no telling what is being used to make these shoes. Since I was a kid, I suspected that something was wrong with the whole concept of shoes. Now I know for sure!
I think Rich's explanation is dead-on. This might be broken, but it's broken because of legislation, not because Old Navy is stupid.
"The sandals are not nade from any of those materials. They're made of something else. Obviously, the material does not exist, because it's something other than itself."
You can see them, but there not there.
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Posted by: gmangw at November 25, 2005 12:20 AM