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Quick recap: I assigned myself a summer reading book, Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost to Cheap Fashion, to help me learn more about ethical fashion. I’m jotting down some notes and thoughts as I read through it this month and sharing them here. Maybe it will inspire you in a new way too!
I’ve divided the book into four sections. (Find my notes on Part One, Part Two and Part Three.) Part Four contains Chapters 7, 8 and 9.
Chapter 7: China and the End of Cheap Fashion
China’s garment industry operates on an intimidating scale. It’s several times bigger than any garment industry that’s happened anywhere in the world at any point in history. They have more than 40,000 clothing manufacturers and 15 million garment industry jobs. Compare that to the 1.45 million garment and textile industry jobs the United States had at peak employment some 40 years ago. (p.169)
Notes and takeaways from this chapter:
- Food for thought: “China’s growing consumer class and incredible industrial output pose enormous sustainability issues for the global economy and the world’s resources. Giardina states, ‘If every man, woman, and child in China bought two pair of wool socks, there would be no more wool left in the world. Think about that. So, yes, there will be problems with scarcity of resources. And what’s going to happen is prices will go up.’ ” (p.172)
- Another unfortunate fact: “In 2010 America imported $364 billion worth of products from China, and according to the Economic Policy Institute, the trade deficit with China has cost the United States nearly 2.8 million jobs, or 2 percent of our domestic employment.” (p.175)
- China is prospering and raising its prices to the point where retailers are looking for even cheaper labor in countries like Cambodia, Vietnam, India, and Bangladesh. Unfortunately, these countries do not have the infrastructure, technology or labor supply and therefore often produce a sub-par product. I looked in my own closet and the cheapest, most “fast fashion” pieces were all made in either Vietnam or Bangladesh.
Chapter 8: Make, Alter, and Mend
Human beings have been sewing for thousands of years; some peg it to the last Ice Age. It’s store-bought clothing, in its inflexible, prefab form, that is the recent invention. When we entirely gave up homemade and custom clothing, we lost a lot of variation, quality, and detail in our wardrobes, and the right fit along with it. (p.191-192)
- This was such an inspiring chapter! Loved this quote from Sarah Kate Beaumont: “There’s a slow food movement; I will call the project to make the majority of clothing I wear slow clothes. Mass-produced clothing, like fast food, fills a hunger and need, yet is non-durable and wasteful. Home sewn garments, similar to home cooked foods, are made with care and sustenance. In a sense clothing can be nourishing.” (p.190)
- A cool year-long experiment: The Uniform Project
- “My mother learned how to sew from her mother and made an outfit from scratch in home economics class in high school. My grandmother on my father’s side didn’t make entire garments, but she was very skilled at taking her family’s clothes in and letting them out. I never learned how to sew. In a single generation the skill was lost.” (p.193)
- Inspiring: Elise’s “Me Made May”
- A book to request from the library: Mending Matters: Stitch, Patch, and Repair Your Favorite Denim & More
Chapter 9: The Future of Fashion
Fabric is the foundation of a garment and perhaps its most important component. A good fabric should feel good next to your skin, wear and wash well over time, and have a certain texture and beauty that becomes recognizable once you start to look for it. (p.212)
Notes and takeaways from this chapter:
- This last paragraph had good advice: “I think we’re all headed in the right direction if we keep these simple principles in mind: Buy clothes you truly love. Don’t buy too much. And get the most out of what you wear. In other words, it’s become clearer to me that where you shop is less important than how you shop.” (p.234)
Hi! I love this book and quoted it quite a bit as well as other articles by Elizabeth Cline. My book, Clothing Goes To War, will be published December 9, 2021. For preordering, please see: https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/C/bo123638395.html
Thanks,
Nan