Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade - Hardcover

Snyder, Rachel Louise

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393061809 ISBN 13: 9780393061802

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

From Azerbaijan to New York City, a human-scale view of global trade.

In the business of making and selling clothes, “Made in” labels do precious little to convey the constellation of treaties, countries, and people at work in the assembly of a simple pair of jeans. In Fugitive Denim journalist Rachel Louise Snyder reports from the far reaches of this multi-billion-dollar industry in search of the real people who make your clothes. From a cotton picker in Azerbaijan to a Cambodian seamstress, a denim maker in Italy to a fashion designer in New York, Snyder captures the human, environmental, and political forces at work in a dizzyingly complex and often absurd world. In a disarming and humorous voice, she ponders questions of equity, sweatshops, and corporate social responsibility through narratives of individual people, making an often academic subject accessible and compelling. Neither polemic nor prescription, Fugitive Denim captures what it means to be at work in the world in the twenty-first century.

About this title

About the Author

Rachel Louise Snyder’s work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Slate, and the New Republic, and on public radio’s “This American Life” and “Marketplace.” She lives in Cambodia and in Chicago, Illinois.

From Publishers Weekly

Smart and ambitious, cosmopolite journalist Snyder maps the global garment industry, beginning in a New York loft where designers plot a line of ultra-pricy, socially responsible jeans that would ensure a fair wage for workers and not cause excessive environmental degradation. From there she visits cotton growers in Azerbaijan, denim specialists in Italy and factories in Cambodia and China. An excellent reporter, Snyder talks comfortably to both sophisticated designers and factory workers, conveying their very different motives as she paints a picture of an industry far more tangled than most consumers imagine. She notes that economic and employment shifts are felt globally, describing Italy mourning the loss of manufacturing to cheaper factories in Asia, where low-paying jobs represent unprecedented opportunity to many workers. If the prose occasionally verges on cuteness, it's preferable to the jargon of quotas and NGOs ubiquitous in most discussions of global trade. Snyder's investigation is an essential read for those curious about fashion or the globe-spanning business that produces their clothes. (Dec.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0393061809
• ISBN 13: 9780393061802
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 352