After a Tragedy, the Memorabilia

New year, new tragedy - new fashion statement?

What else to think from the spate of "Je suis Charlie" products flooding the web, from T-shirts to aprons, bracelets, buttons and sweats?

It began almost immediately after the massacre at Charlie Hebdo; picked up speed at the Golden Globes, where Amal Clooney wore a black and white "Je suis Charlie" button with her black Dior dress and white gloves, and graduated to "where to buy" sites across the Internet.

There are Je Suis Charlie items retailing on Etsy (seven pages of products, from bracelets to pendants), Amazon, Spreadshirt (34 T-shirts, sweats and mugs) and Zazzle. French Elle even put "Je Suis Charlie" on its latest cover.

And almost immediately thereafter came the backlash on Twitter and elsewhere.

Michele Acquarone @micacquarone, Jan. 14:

"I read about the 'Je suis Charlie' products available for sale. The human greed is infinite."

Emily Peacock @EmilyJPeacock, Jan. 9:

"Disappointed that people have launched #jesuischarlie products. It's not a bloody market."

A translation of Spreadshirt's French blog, "Charlie" posted, Jan. 14:

"You are not Charlie, you are a T-shirt vendor, you have changed sides, you are trying to gain prestige, this is just marketing, you are disgusting"

Those involved who have responded say they were motivated by solidarity, not profits. According to a blog Spreadshirt wrote in response to the above: "none of the 'I am Charlie-related' designs or products in our Partner shops, Marketplace or external marketplaces carries any commission that would in any way turn a profit from this tragedy. Furthermore, Spreadshirt will accept no commission on the sale of any 'I am Charlie' products."

Then the company noted that it was donating all profits of "jesuischarlie" or "charliehebdo" products to the official "Support Charlie Hebdo and the families of victims the attack" foundation.

Yet, when there's product involved, there's no getting away from the taint of commercialism and the suspicion that just maybe someone is trying to profit from someone else's pain. After all, on both Spreadshirt and Dazzle, the items are listed under "Je Suis Charlie gifts" not "Je Suis Charlie solidarity statements." (On Amazon, by contrast, some of the SKUs are called "Je Suis Charlie Protest shirts.") Gifts? Really?

It's a disconnect that is not limited to the recent attack.

Consider the Boston Marathon bombing. Memorabilia was sold on eBay almost immediately after the event, to much horror (eBay ended up taking most of them down).

And the Ebola outbreak: It is still possible to find T-shirts, cuff links, earrings and assorted gewgaws online - as well as negative commentary ("Pretty Sick Products," Adweek punned).

The post-Ferguson police crisis? Ditto.

Indeed, the latter provides a case study as to the complexities of the matter.

Last season, just after the riots broke out following the grand jury decision not to indict the police officer who fatally shot Michael Brown, Kerby Jean-Raymond, 28, the designer and founder of the New York label Pyer Moss, created a T-shirt for himself based on a classic Pyer Moss Japanese viscose style, customized with the names of assorted victims of police aggression. He wore the shirt to his show at New York Fashion Week in September. Some photos went viral, and the next thing he knew he was getting multiple emails asking where to buy the shirt.

"I hesitated for three months" about actually making the shirt, said Jean-Raymond, who grew up in the East Flatbush area of Brooklyn in a Haitian family. As a child, he remembered hearing about the attack of Abner Louima (which took place in his neighborhood).

"I'm surprised I had the nerve to go through with it," he said. "Friends told me not to because we knew there would be people who would attack me as making money at other people's expense. But then, I thought: 'The option is to do this or do nothing. And doing nothing is worse.' So we decided to do it as a way to raise money and awareness."

A limited edition of 1,000 shirts has been made; all revenue from the first 250, which retail for $70, will go directly to the American Civil Liberties Union "because they work on all kinds of causes and injustice," Jean-Raymond said. Subsequently, after-cost profits will be donated. (The cost of the shirt is $32.) He hopes to raise $20,000 to $30,000 for the organization.

"Still, you really can't win," he said. "I know no matter how transparent we are about where the money is going, people will say I am exploiting the problem."

At issue is the tension between the basic human desire to demonstrate allegiance to a cause by wearing it, literally, on one's sleeve. That tendency is facilitated by the contemporary personalization/maker movement trend, wherein individuals have been empowered by the Web's ease of creation and dissemination to craft their own stuff - not to mention the current vogue, driven by social media, to living in public - and the equally public opportunity to judge and condemn.

But while it's easy to blame the maker for our own discomfort with the retail-ization of cause, that is an evasion of responsibility - on everyone's part. The consumers who demand the products and buy them drive this particular e-tail niche. Fashion reflects the world, in all its fears and foibles, and this is a classic case of supply and demand: If there was no demand, the supply would disappear.

This is not to say that among the vendors there are none who are simply seizing the moment and mining it for personal gain. But ultimately the power to decide what is right or wrong lies with the buyer. Everybody needs to consider it for themselves.