Over - Dressed : The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

by Cline, Elizabeth L.

• ISBN13: 9781591844617
• ISBN10: 1591844614
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-06-14
• Publisher: Portfolio Hardcover

Summary

Like The Omnivore's Dilemmadid for food, The Good Closetshows us the way back to feeling good about what we wear. Fast fashion and disposable clothing have become our new norms. We buy ten-dollar shoes from Target that disintegrate within a month and make weekly pilgrimages to Forever 21 and H&M. Elizabeth Cline argues that this rapid cycle of consumption isn't just erasing our sense of style and causing massive harm to the environment and human rights-it's also bad for our souls. Cline documents her own transformation from fast-fashion addict to conscientious shopper. She takes a long look at her overstuffed closet, resoles her cheap imported boots, travels to the world's only living- wage garment factory, and seeks out cutting-edge local and sustainable fashion, all on her journey to find antidotes to out-of-control shopping. Cline looks at the impact here and abroad of America's drastic increase in inexpensive clothing imports, visiting cheap-chic factories in Bangladesh and China and exploring the problems caused by all those castoffs we donate to the Salvation Army. She also shows how consumers can vote with their dollars to grow the sustainable clothing industry, reign in the conventional apparel market, and wear their clothes with pride.

Author Biography

Elizabeth Cline has written for AMCtv.com, the Daily Beast, New York, Popular Science, The New Republic, The Village Voice, and seedmagazine.com. She lives in Brooklyn. Visit themindofelizabethcline.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction Seven Pairs of $7 Shoes	p. 1
"I Have Enough Clothing to Open a Store"	p. 11
How America Lost Its Shirts	p. 36
High and Low Fashion Make Friends	p. 62
Fast Fashion	p. 95
The Afterlife of Cheap Clothes	p. 119
Sewing Is a Good Job, a Great Job	p. 138
China and the End of Cheap Fashion	p. 161
Make, Alter, and Mend	p. 187
The Future of Fashion	p. 207
Acknowledgments	p. 223
Notes	p. 225
Index	p. 237
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