Dear West Elm Marketing Corps

Dear West Elm Marketing Corps:

As the Christmas (and, as I understand it, miscellaneous other) holiday hours are nearing, it disappoints me that I’ve yet to hear back from your office regarding the picture entitled “Urban Cocoa,” which I submitted for late consideration for your winter catalogue.

It would be an understatement for me to say that I think you are making a flagrant error in overlooking this picture as your cover shot. For your own spiritual edification, I have decided to offer a brief exegesis of some of the merits of this photograph, merits that you might have been too involved in your own processes to notice.

The picture is taken within a contained winter space. This allows a consumer to conclude that there might actually be a West Elm store within the general vicinity of the place where this photograph was taken (which is true, two streets north and one avenue east, to be specific). People don’t want to be lied to, they’ve had enough of it, and the more conventional “free range” scapes proffered in past catalogues (which, I should add, were greatly enjoyed) are now falling on deaf ears (eyes?) in this economy.

While your catalogues normally do not feature any models at all, I think that this approach has been a tactical misstep on your part. In this picture, we can see the model (not officially accredited [but replete with everyman qualities]) standing in a pose with one of your handsome shell coffee cups and a consumer might identify with his yearning for a hot beverage in the winter chill (clearly a metaphor for virility [especially in this economy]).

The aesthetic quality of the model’s chic masculinity, especially within the frame of a vaguely urban but not “downtrodden” backdrop intimates a locus of both holiday revel and heteronormativity, the very watchwords of mass marketing.

Might I also offer that the caption “Urban Cocoa” resonates deeply with the current American political climate in very subconscious ways. As the incoming administration proves, the title of the picture itself might sell a few million coffee cups without the inclusion of the photograph (which is, of course, not at all what I am suggesting).

At any rate, these philosophical threads are more worth exploring for future catalogues, I know that time is pressing, so I will leave you in the grace of good holiday wishes and successful business partnerships.

I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Adam