Unraveled: The Life and Death of a Garment
- ISBN-10
- 0593085973
- ISBN-13
- 9780593085974
- Series
- Unraveled
- Category
- Business & Economics
- Pages
- 336
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-06-01
- Publisher
- Penguin
- Author
- Maxine Bedat
Description
Longlisted for the FT/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award A groundbreaking chronicle of the birth--and death--of a pair of jeans, that exposes the fractures in our global supply chains, and our relationships to each other, ourselves, and the planet Take a look at your favorite pair of jeans. Maybe you bought them on Amazon or the Gap; maybe the tag says "Made in Bangladesh" or "Made in Sri Lanka." But do you know where they really came from, how many thousands of miles they crossed, or the number of hands who picked, spun, wove, dyed, packaged, shipped, and sold them to get to you? The fashion industry operates with radical opacity, and it's only getting worse to disguise countless environmental and labor abuses. It epitomizes the ravages inherent in the global economy, and all in the name of ensuring that we keep buying more while thinking less about its real cost. In Unraveled, entrepreneur, researcher, and advocate Maxine Bédat follows the life of an American icon--a pair of jeans--to reveal what really happens to give us our clothes. We visit a Texas cotton farm figuring out how to thrive without relying on fertilizers that poison the earth. Inside dyeing and weaving factories in China, where chemicals that are banned in the West slosh on factory floors and drain into waterways used to irrigate local family farms. Sewing floors in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are crammed with women working for illegally low wages to produce garments as efficiently as machines. Back in America, our jeans get stowed, picked, and shipped out by Amazon warehouse workers pressed to be as quick as the robots primed to replace them. Finally, those jeans we had to have get sent to landfills--or, if they've been "donated," shipped back around the world to Africa, where they're sold for pennies in secondhand markets or buried and burned in mountains of garbage. A sprawling, deeply researched, and provocative tour-de-force, Unraveled is not just the story of a pair of pants, but also the story of our global economy and our role in it. Told with piercing insight and unprecedented reporting, Unraveled challenges us to use our relationship with our jeans--and all that we wear--to reclaim our central role as citizens to refashion a society in which all people can thrive and preserve the planet for generations to come.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Unraveled
By Leanne HatchThe bond is once again instant. Leanne Hatch brings this story of growing up and taking things with us in new ways to life with her warm text and richly textured art. A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
-
Unraveled
By Gena ShowalterBefore the White Rabbit Chronicles, before Firstlife, New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter wrote the Intertwined series, featuring a sixteen-year-old boy with four other souls trapped in his head.
-
The Princess Revolt
By Cathy O'NeillDisney’s Twisted Tales meets the Half Upon a Time trilogy in this “lively” (School Library Journal) first book of a new fantasy series following a young girl who discovers that fairy tale characters are real when she becomes the ...
-
A Mind Unraveled: A True Story of Disease, Love, and Triumph
By Kurt Eichenwald"The compelling story of an acclaimed journalist and New York Times bestselling author's ongoing struggle with epilepsy--his torturous decision to keep his condition a secret to avoid discrimination, and his ensuing decades-long battle to ...
-
Unraveled: A Mother and Son Story of Addiction and Redemption
By Laura Cook Boldt, Tom H. BoldtIf only ... My double life wasn't quite as exciting, but at least I didn't have the same issues with the ladies. I was a tennis club lackey by day before transforming into my alter ego by night.
-
Unraveled
By Kate Jarvik BirchThe Perfected series is best enjoyed in order. Reading Order: Book #1 Perfected Book #2 Tarnished Book #3 Unraveled
-
Unraveled
By Ivy LayneUnraveled is a standalone romance with a happy ending. It's first in The Untangled Series featuring the Sinclair brothers you first met in the Alpha Billionaire Club and Scandals of the Bad Boy Billionaire series.
-
And Then Everything Unraveled
By Jennifer SturmanMeg Cabot called this rich, witty YA mystery about a girl, her missing mother, and New York City "a delight...pure fun.
-
Unraveled: One Woman's Story of Moving Out, Moving On, and Becoming a Different Kind of Mother
By Maria HousdenHousden shares the riveting story of how, after the death of her young daughter, she found the courage to break away from her role as a wife and stay-at-home mom and strike out on her own in search of a more fulfilling life.
-
Crewel: A Novel
By Gennifer AlbinDeadly Secrets Tangled Lies Woven truths Incapable.