Hammies is working to become a more inclusive brand. Many fashion brands pride themselves on being exclusive but we are aiming for just the opposite. We don't think the world needs another exclusive anything.
So what does it mean to be an inclusive brand? It can be understood better in three parts.
Diversity
The goal is to have a diverse Hammies Family. We want our community to include people of all genders, ages, races, ethnicities, body-types, economic backgrounds, geographic locations, etc.
We have customers all over the world but when you look at our website and Instagram, what do you see? You see a lot of people that look like us (Sarah and Grant): white, thin, 30-some year-olds. This wasn't intentional but that's where the family started and here we are.
So how do we make the Hammies Family more diverse? That's where the next two parts come in...
Equity
Credit: Toby Ruth, Design in Tech Report 2019
Equity is often compared to equality and the image above does a great job of illustrating the difference. Equality assumes that equal access produces equal outcomes while equity acknowledges that different people have different needs and attempts to meet people where they are.
We acknowledge that our pricing doesn't fit all budgets and our sizes don't fit all bodies. If we want to have a more diverse family, we need to start here.
Inclusion
Verna Myers famously said that "Diversity is being invited to the party. Inclusion is being asked to dance."
We acknowledge that Hammies will not be an inclusive brand until people of all backgrounds and identities feel represented on our website and Instagram.
Initiatives
Acknowledging that we could do better, we are introducing some new initiatives to make Hammies more equitable and inclusive to our potential family.
Student and Military Discount
We acknowledge that our prices may not be affordable for college students so we are introducing a new Student Discount.
If you are an active duty or veteran service member of the US military, we salute you and extend a Military Discount to you for your service.
Hammies Equity Fund
We acknowledge that our prices may not be affordable for a variety of reasons (especially in the midst of a global pandemic) so we are introducing the Hammies Equity Fund. We are pledging $10,000 to the fund to help low-income individuals get into a pair of Hammies. Thanks to a suggestion from our customer and friend Pete, we are allowing customers to donate to the fund at checkout to help us extend this initiative into the future.
After running for only week and without any announcement, we helped 20 people get into Hammies who wouldn't have been able to otherwise and we have received donations from over 35 customers! Welcome to the Hammies Family and thank you so much for your donations! ❤️
More sizes
We acknowledge that there are many sizes we don't offer yet so we have created a Request a Size page on our website to survey what sizes people want the most. We will review the results before our next production run and add the most requested sizes to our lineup!
We are doing the same for colors, too (see our Request a Color page).
Sharing is caring
We want to use our platform to promote individuals, organizations, and other brands that are groovy and doing groovy things. Show us your Hammies and mention/tag us on Instagram/Facebook/Twitter and we will HYPE YOU UP! 😋 If social media isn't your thing, we totally get that and invite you to connect with us via chat or email.
Would you like to work with us to promote Hammies to a more diverse audience? We would love to work with you!
- Become a Hambassador and earn free shorts in exchange for introducing Hammies to your friends and followers. See our Ambassador page to learn more.
- If you are a photographer, model, artist, athlete, or content creator and interested in collaborating with us, let's talk.
Connect with us
Thank you for your interest as we start to make Hammies more diverse, equitable, and inclusive. Your voice matters to us and we welcome your feedback. Send us a message via our chat widget (in the lower-right corner) or send us an email.
We appreciate your continued support and patience as we grow.