June, and therefore our old friend summer, are here. And with that comes inevitable sun, sea, festivals, heatwaves and glorious days out. In theory that is. As I write this, I’m gazing out of the office window in Bradford-on-Avon watching endless rain. Still, with a bit of sun forecast later we might get some nice rainbows. And what better time for it, wouldn’t you say? June is of course the month of Pride, and by now we’re all accustomed to rainbows being plastered over everything for a month.
Doesn’t it seem a little tokenistic by this stage? June rolls round, a fast food company mixes up some burger buns and therefore they’re ‘supporting Pride month’. A food company releases an ill-judged themed sandwich to great disdain. Somebody flings some arbitrary words and colours to a mouthwash bottle. It all feels a bit unsubstantiated and a little bit insulting to the cause. And what happens in July? Does the support stop? Are we no longer proud? Marginalised communities are marginalised all year round and our support should reflect that.
Also, what does it even mean to ‘support Pride’ through a marketing campaign? When does it actually enter into cynical exploitation? If a large corporation is using the messaging of Pride to sell more products, then does it not start to wander into a moral grey area? We’ve been guilty of it in the past: we’ve had Pride campaigns that rang a bit hollow. We wanted to put things right and make sure we are giving genuine and tangible support. So, this year we’re making sure we get the messaging right: Ti2 Titanium supports Pride and the LGBTQIA+ community always, not just in June.
I’m looking right now at our catalogue and I’m seeing a whole array of colour, rainbow and gold throughout our hypoallergenic range, but we do this all year round. Not just June. Therefore, it would feel counter-intuitive to try and funnel a concept of “rainbows and colour!” into just one month. And so it follows, if we support the cause all year round, and make a yearly donation to a LGBTQIA+ charity, it would feel wrong to just concentrate our messaging of support into just June. Ti2 Titanium doesn’t ‘slap a rainbow on’ during June, we show our colours all year round.
What we do get right is that we are not tokenistic in our iconography. We don’t have a ‘Pride range’ that rears its head in June, nor do we chuck Pride flags at existing stock just to sell in Pride month. If you want to celebrate colour with Ti2 you can do that 365 days a year through any of our collections. Colour is who we are, it’s who you are and it’s one of life’s great shared joys. So much of what we do is centred around love: love for yourself, love for others, love of nature. We want to choose love every day.
And don’t get us wrong, we love Pride month. Pride month is a joyous few weeks of colour, of inclusivity and of individuality expressed through clothes, jewellery, dance, hairstyles and any number of ways people think to express themselves. And we adore Pride month for that. We love watching a community come together in celebration, in protest and in fun. And we love the parades! We can’t wait to see Bristol explode with colour for Bristol Pride at the end of the month and similarly in Bath for Bath Pride in August.
As I’m finishing writing this the rain has just stopped and I can see the sun poking its head out. Bradford on Avon looks stunning in this light. It’s going to be a great month.
Pride is about people, not customers. Pride is not about selling jewellery, it’s about love.
Show Your Colour. Wear it with Pride.
Chris at Ti2 Titanium.
This year we have made a donation to Out Of The Can based in Swindon, down the road from us in Wiltshire. Out of the Can offers a safe, supportive space for young people aged 12-19 to meet, share and grow together, exploring themselves within a safe community. We wish them all the best: Happy Pride month!
