Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion - Softcover

Tansy E. Hoskins

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1552666638 ISBN 13: 9781552666630

Publisher: Fernwood Publishing, 2014

Synopsis

Stitched Up delves into the alluring world of fashion to reveal what is behind the clothes we wear. Moving between Karl Lagerfeld and Karl Marx, the book explores consumerism, class and advertising to reveal the interests which benefit from exploitation.

Tansy E. Hoskins dissects fashion’s vampiric relationship with the planet and with our bodies to uncover what makes it so damaging. Why does ‘size zero’ exist and what is the reality of working life for models? In a critique of the portrayal of race in fashion, the book also examines the global balance of power in the industry.

Beautifully illustrated with specially commissioned designs, In a compelling conclusion Stitched Up explores the use of clothing to resist. Can you shock an industry that loves to shock? Is ‘green fashion’ an alternative? Stitched Up provides a unique critical examination of contemporary culture and the distorting priorities of capitalism.

About this title

About the Author:

Tansy E. Hoskins is a writer, journalist and activist. She has worked for Stop the War Coalition, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and the Islam Channel. She writes for the Guardian and Business of Fashion, and has appeared on the BBC, Al Jazeera and Channel 4's Ten O'Clock Live.

Review:

'A book that hangs like a garment on a coat-hanger. A garment with many pockets. In the pockets numberless notes and remarks about clothes and history. Take it off the hanger and put it on. By which I mean - read it and walk through history. ' - John Berger

'Tansy Hoskins interrogates today's fashion landscape with rigour, intellectualism and gut instinct. Stitched Up contains a number of splendidly-articulated seminal moments that will make you view your wardrobe through a different lens. A fine investigation of the cultural tyranny of a multibillion pound industry, vast employer and polluter inclined to operate as if above censure. ' - Lucy Siegle, writer for The Observer and author of To Die For

'This is a wonderful book, bursting at the seams with power, passion and politics. Tansy Hoskins lays bare the capitalist relations of production, marketing and consumption that sustain the fashion industry, and calls for a revolution to liberate us from its tyranny. Clothes will never look the same again! ' - John Hilary, Executive Director at War on Want and author of The Poverty of Capitalism

About this edition

• Publisher: Fernwood Publishing
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1552666638
• ISBN 13: 9781552666630
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 216