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

Snyder, Rachel Louise

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393335429 ISBN 13: 9780393335422

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2009

Synopsis

“A fascinating chronicle of the $55-billion-a-year global denim industry.” ―David Futrelle, Los Angeles Times

Rachel Louise Snyder reports from the far reaches of the multi-billion-dollar denim industry in search of the 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 complex and often absurd world. Neither polemic nor prescription, Fugitive Denim captures what it means to work 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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About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0393335429
• ISBN 13: 9780393335422
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 368