New York Times bestseller and journalist Dana Thomas sits down with Stop Modern Day Slavery founder, Rachel to discuss her latest book. Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes examines the environmental and human costs of fast fashion, including sweatshop labor, ecological deterioration, overconsumption, and waste. Fashionopolis offers a thought-provoking exploration of the apparel industry and its dark side. It is a must-read for all fashion enthusiasts.
Before we get started, could you please tell me a bit about yourself?
I am a Paris-based foreign correspondent who specializes in arts, culture, and fashion, but can write—and have written—about anything. I was born in Washington, D.C., began my career at The Washington Post in the late 1980s, and moved to Paris in 1992, when I married a wonderful Frenchman. I have one teenage daughter. I’ve written three books: Deluxe: How Luxury Lost Its Luster, which was a New York Times bestseller; Gods and Kings: The Rise and Fall of Alexander McQueen and John Galliano; and Fashionopolis: The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes, which was published last year.
How did you first get interested in fashion and clothing?
I was a fashion model as a teenager in Philadelphia, where I grew up, and later in New York and Europe. I used the money I earned modeling to pay for university. I knew I wanted to be a writer. But I wanted to cover politics. However, my favorite class in school as a kid was humanities. So I swerved towards covering humanities. I see myself almost like a social anthropologist. And what I have learned is fashion is actually about politics and business. Not clothes.
Can you tell us a little about Fashionopolis? What is it about?
It was inspired by a few things: Manchester in the early days of the Industrial Revolution, when the city and region was the capital of cotton milling and known as Cottonopolis; Fritz Lang’s classic silent picture Metropolis, which studies the haves and the have-nots; and the writings of the Greek philosopher Plato, and his view of the polis. As I write in the book, polis in ancient Greek meant “city.” Plato put forth in the Socratic dialogue The Republic that an ideal polis should embody four cardinal virtues: wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. If all came together harmoniously, the polis would attain perfect equality—a “just city.” If we did that in the fashion industry, we would have a just industry—and society. Basically, everything in this world is somehow connected to the fashion industry. We don’t realize it, but it is—from the moment we get up in the morning and get dressed.
What inspired you to write this book?
Lots of things: the reshoring movement; climate change; Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh; the outright greed that drives the industry; the inhumane treatment of most of the workers who produce fashion. The more I covered the industry, the darker and greedier I found it to be—especially during the age of globalization. It needed calling out. We think of fashion as beauty, but it has a very ugly underbelly.
Also, I felt that consumers had no idea how their clothes were made, and if they knew, they would make more responsible purchases.
What was the process of researching for your book like? How long did it take?
It took two and a half years. I began in Nashville and Florence, Alabama, with the Slow Fashion movement, which is the middle of the book. Then I took various reporting trips: one to Asia, where I went to Japan, Vietnam, and Bangladesh. One to the West Coast, to visit Levi’s, the Silicon Valley start-up Bolt Threads, organic cotton leader Sally Fox, and the sweatshops of Los Angeles. I did a couple of trips to New York. And spent a fair amount of time in the UK, since much of the sustainability movement in fashion is rooted there.
What was the most difficult part of your book to write? The easiest?
The most difficult was visiting and writing about the survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh. Their stories are so heartbreaking, and their misery was absolutely unnecessary and avoidable. Easiest? There’s nothing easy about writing a book.
Fair enough! What was the most shocking piece of information you learned when researching this topic?
That the average garment is thrown away after seven wears, and more than 90 percent of those clothes are not recycled. The waste, and our carelessness towards things that required so much effort and time to make, is astounding.
I absolutely agree. When did you first learn about the mistreatment and abuse of fashion workers? How did you feel?
I don’t know when I first learned about it. But I find it horrifying, and can’t believe that we still allow—and abet—it. The global fashion supply chain is in essence a corporate form of colonialism, and the underpaid and badly-treated workers are just one step up from slaves. Indeed, there is slavery in the supply chain, and prison labor. The mind reels.
Fashionopolis is your third book centering around the fashion industry. How is Fashionopolis different from your previous books?
Deluxe is about how fashion—and actually all business—in the age of globalization sacrificed integrity for the sake of profit.
Gods and Kings is about how fashion—and actually all business—sacrificed the creative spirit, and the creative talent, for the sake of profits. In the long-running battle between art and commerce, commerce won.
And Fashionopolis is about how fashion—and actually all business—sacrificed humanity and the planet for the sake of profit.
For all three, I use fashion to explore bigger issues, like greed. Fashion is easy to understand. And frankly, it’s sexy.
By the time your reader finishes your book, what will he or she have learned? What is the major takeaway?
Well, I hope that is makes consumers think before they buy, and before they throwaway, clothes. I hope they understand the impact these purchases have on humanity and the planet. Maybe they’ll even read the labels!
Ha! Can you tell me about Fashionopolis’ cover art? What is its meaning?
The image is of a famous artwork, called “Venus of the Rags,” by Michelangelo Pistoletto, from 1967. It’s a nod to the Fritz Lang movie poster in its shape—a tower of clothes. It also shows that, in the end, fashion is a pile of clothes, of rags, limp and lifeless. And it is supposed to evoke careless waste, and the ugliness of fashion next to the most beautiful of women, naked: Venus.
Do you plan on writing another book someday? What might the subject matter be?
Yes, of course! I have plenty I want to write. But this is the end of a trilogy. I won’t be diving back into this area again in book form. At least I don’t think I will be.
What is your greatest hope for the fashion industry?
I think I state it all in the book. After all, we call it a book of hope!
Thank you so much, Dana for speaking with me today! It was great to hear more about your book. The reader can purchase Fashionopolis online here.
