Ivanka Trump’s Powerful “Letter from a Birmingham Nordstrom” [Abridged]
13 February 2017
My Dear Nordstrom Execs:
While confined here in the dressing room at the Nordstrom at River Ridge in Birmingham city, I came across your recent statement citing the poor “performance” of my line as reason you are canceling your spring order for both Ivanka Trump shoes and Ivanka Trump apparel. Seldom do I pause to answer criticism of my work and ideas. If I sought to answer all the criticisms that cross my desk, my secretaries and the Executive Branch of our federal government would have little time for anything other than such correspondence in the course of the day, and I would have no time for constructive work. But since I feel that you are men of genuine good will and that your criticisms are sincerely set forth, I want to try to answer your statement in what I hope will be patient and reasonable terms.
I think I should indicate why I am here in Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against “selling clothes that people actually do not want.” I have the honor of serving as CEO of my eponymous clothing line and lifestyle brand, carried in stores like Macy’s, Bed Bath & Beyond, Ross, Wal-Mart and K-Mart. Frequently I visit these stores to make sure they are displaying the merchandise correctly and to strong arm store managers into selling them more aggressively. Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct action program to sell more of the Ivanka Trump Faux Fur-Trim Belted Down Puffer Coats if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here. I am here because I want to swindle people into buying more of my shitty crap.
But more basically, I am in Birmingham because injustice is here. Just as the prophets of the eighth century B.C. left their villages and carried their “thus saith the Lord” far beyond the boundaries of their home towns, and just as the Apostle Paul left his village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to the far corners of the Greco Roman world, so am I compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my own home town. Like Paul, I must constantly respond to the Macedonian call for aid. Aid for me — and the absurd amount of money I make from each Ivanka Trump Mara Cocktail Embossed Faux Leather Shoulder Bag sold to some dimwitted shopper.
Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Washington, D.C. and not be concerned about sales of the Ivanka Trump Asymmetrical Walker Coat with Brooch in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds. Unless of course, you are accustomed to shopping at Wal-Mart and think that anyone gives a fuck that you are boycotting Nordstrom.
You deplore the tepid sales of Ivanka Trump merchandise taking place in Birmingham and throughout the United States. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about these tepid sales. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that tepid sales are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city’s white power structure and your complete bungling of the roll-out of the Ivanka Trump Lace Sheath Dresses left me with no alternative.
In any fashion campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the designs to determine whether they can sell; ignoring step one because we have learned that people are so fucking stupid that they can be suckered into buying anything; selection of the fake fabrics I will have Chinese kids use to make this junk; and direct sales. We have gone through all these steps in Birmingham. There can be no gainsaying the fact that fashion injustice engulfs this Nordstrom. The Birmingham Nordstrom displays my merchandise horribly; it is the worst Nordstrom Rack in the United States. Its ugly record of mixing day wear like the Ivanka Trump Floral Print Mock Choker Dress with evening pieces like the Ivanka Trump Faux-Leather Trim Jacquard Fit & Flare Dress is widely known. I have experienced grossly unjust treatment in the accessories department as well. There have been more unsold bangle bracelets in this Birmingham Nordstrom than in any other Nordstrom in any other city in the nation. These are the hard, brutal facts of the case. On the basis of these conditions, I sought to coerce you. But you consistently refused to be coerced.
***
You may well ask: “Why try repositioning the brand to move merchandise? Isn’t slashing prices a better path?” You are quite right in calling for sweeping markdowns to get this embarrassing shit out of the store. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Reduced prices and sales seek to create such excitement over the Ivanka Trump line that a community which has constantly refused to buy the merchandise is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of excitement as part of the work of the 50% off price reduction may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “sale”. I have earnestly opposed sales, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of excitement that will help shoppers come to Nordstrom Rack and spend $128 on the Ivanka Trump Jersey Floral-Print Faux-Wrap Dress and to the majestic heights they can achieve with the Ivanka Trump Hela Strappy Lace-Up Sandals. The purpose of our direct repositioning is to create a situation so consumer driver it will inevitably open the door to greater sales. I therefore concur with you in your call for price reduction. Too long has our beloved Southland been bogged down in a tragic effort to live in monologue rather than dialogue.
One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. Some have asked: “Why didn’t you give the new store managers time to act?” The only answer that I can give to this query is that the new Birmingham store managers must be prodded to move the Ivanka Trump Faux Fur Trim Hooded Down Puffer Coat to the front of the outerwear section, before they will do so.
***
One may well ask: “How can you advocate marking down some Ivanka Trump merchandise and leaving other merchandise at full price?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of garments: cheap shit that no one wants and cheap shit that I can fool people into buying. I would be the first to advocate marking down the cheap shit that no one wants. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to mark down such garments to get them out of the store. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to keep cheap shit that I can fool people into buying for that is the Trump way. I would agree with St. Augustine that “cheap shit that I can’t fool anyone into buying is no garment at all.”
Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a garment is just cheap shit that no one wants or cheap shit that I actually can fool people into buying? Cheap shit that no one wants — like the Ivanka Trump Faux Suede Mock-Neck Shift Dress originally sold for $148.00 and now on sale for $53.99 — is a garment that I cannot sell. Cheap shit that I can actually fool people into thinking they want — like the Ivanka Trump Velvet-Trim Sheath Dress now on sale for $79.99, is a garment that is in harmony with the rest of the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: trying to sell cheap shit that no one wants is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any garment that makes me richer is a good garment. Any garment that does not make richer is unjust. Anything Nordstrom does to impede me from being richer is unjust because poorness distorts the soul and damages the personality.
***
I have traveled the length and breadth of all the Nordstroms and Nordstrom racks, and lots of other department stores too. On sweltering summer days and crisp autumn mornings I have looked at The Ivanka Trump Metallic Lace Colorblocked Sheath Dress displayed proudly on the sales floor while its faux metallic lace glimmers in the artificial lights. I have beheld the impressive outlines of the Ivanka Trump Faux-Leather Moto Jacket. Over and over I have found myself asking: “What kind of people buy this shit? Who is their God? Where were their voices when the lips of Nordstrom executives dripped with words of interposition and nullification? Where were they when the Nordstrom executives gave a clarion call for defiance and hatred? Where were their voices of support when the Ivanka Trump Tirra Pointy Toe Pumps were marked down from $120.00 to $59.99?”
I wish you had commended the Nordstrom shoppers of Birmingham for their sublime courage, their willingness to buy my crap and amazing gullibility in the midst of this great swindle. One day Nordstrom will recognize these morons. They will be the entitled deplorable, with the noble sense of purpose that enables them to face jeering and hostile mobs, and with the agonizing loneliness that characterizes the life of the pioneer though with any luck they will be wearing the Ivanka Trump Floral-Print Popover Dress. They will be old, oppressed, battered deplorable women, symbolized by the jeering leering crowds at one of my father’s rallies, who saved everything — even went without dental care — to buy the Ivanka Trump Double-Breasted Melange Peacoat and rose up with a sense of dignity and with her people decided not to use her brain, and who responded with ungrammatical profundity to one who inquired about her weariness: “My feets is tired, but they look great in the Ivanka Trump Janie Pumps.” They will be the young high school and college students, the young ministers of the gospel and a host of their elders, courageously and nonviolently walking into Nordstrom Rack and saying “I know the Ivanka Trump Faux Suede Grommet Wrap Dress cost about $2.74 to produce; nevertheless I am going to buy it for $148.00 because I saw Ivanka wear it while walking to Marine 1 on her way to Dover Air Force Base to pay homage to dead soldiers”.
Never before have I written so long a letter. I’m afraid it is much too long to take your precious time. I can assure you that it would have been much shorter if I had been writing from a comfortable desk, but what else can one do when she is oppressed and being treated unfairly and alone in a dimly lit Nordstrom, other than write long letters, think long thoughts of new ways to coerce people to buy this crappy overpriced non-American-made shit?
Yours for the cause of Peace and Deception,
Ivanka Trump
