"Smart and ambitious... Snyder's investigation is an essential read for those curious about fashion or the globe-spanning business that produces their clothes.: - Publishers Weekly
"A rare book on [globalization] that is neither boring nor preachy but a wise tale of what global trade really means.: -Elizabeth Becker, author of When the War Was Over: Cambodia and the Khmer Rouge
"There are people's stories woven into each pair of blue jeans, and Rachel Louise Snyder illuminates these stories with a reporter's eye and a human heart.: -Pietra Rivoli, author of The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy
The multi-billion dollar textile industry is perhaps the world's best barometer of globalization's effects - both nefarious and beneficial. After all, everyone has to get dressed in the morning, and that means they need clothes - clothes that are usually made in far-off countries, under the auspices of a rapidly changing cluster of trade agreements and quota treaties.
The remarkably complex chain of events, from the cotton field to the factory floor to the catwalk, is the focus of writer Rachel Louise Snyder's captivating new book, FUGITIVE DENIM [W.W. Norton & Company; December 3, 2007; $26.95]. In crisp, witty prose Snyder delivers a fascinating portrait of a global industry facing monumental change as the deadline to scrap a global trade system looms.
In Azerbaijan, a cotton grower mourns the loss of the Soviet Empire even as his own wealth blossoms. A group of North Carolinian lab technicians set denim aflame in the name of safety. A team of Cambodian officials try to take on Washington and end up saddened by a shopping trip in Georgetown. All of these characters and more - unknowingly interdependent on one another - weave a complex tale of global trade and consumer fancy in FUGITIVE DENIM.
And all are attempting to secure their own economic survival in the wake of a post-World War II quota system that expired in 2005 and threatens as many as three dozen countries' textile industries with extinction. The dismantling of the old quota system will dramatically shift the balance of power from traditional economies like Italy to low-cost labor behemoths like China. Snyder provides an acute insider's perspective on what these changes mean, and how textile manufacturers all over the world are struggling to cope. And all the while, during this holiday season, consumers will shop blithely on, the unwitting pinnacle of a rumbling volcano.
Snyder's compelling narrative focuses on a relatively narrow, if familiar niche of the clothing universe: that icon of Americana, the denim cloth of blue jeans.
But her tale is a tale of people: the upper-class designers in Italy facing a collapsing domestic industry; the women of Phnom Penh, Cambodia or Shenzhen in China who can see a glimmer of hope in the progressive policies adopted by their countries' labor unions and bosses under pressure from buyers in the first world; the mysterious businessmen who sort and rank cotton in some of the world's most remote markets; and the noble-minded entrepreneurs - backed by celebs like U2's Bono - who are struggling to make a difference by shining a bright light on the industry's all-too-apparent problems and willing Western consumers to take a stand.
FUGITIVE DENIM travels up and down the rag trade's food chain, from dingy offices in Azerbaijan to hip Manhattan lofts; and from the dimming industrial heartland of Italy to an unexpectedly modern garment factory in China. Snyder's tour reveals that clothing can be made in ways that are progressive, humane, environmentally secure and productive - a far cry from the common notion of a "sweatshop: or the drama of child labor - while still fulfilling the industry's need for low-cost manufacturing, semi-skilled labor, quick turnarounds despite the looming quota system revamp. It will be all but impossible to fully re-map the industry, because the individual skills and long-guarded knowledge of certain players - from the cotton experts to the dyers, from the seamstresses to the finishers - are deeply rooted, and difficult to extract or export.
As Snyder writes, the garment industry, which employs as many as 40 million people all over the world, is like a vast ecosystem struggling to remain in balance. Any disruption can bring great social and economic costs to bear, often in remote outposts that seemingly have nothing to do with the cut of a pair of Levis.
FUGITIVE DENIM is a marvellous portrait of that still-developing, yet under-threat ecosystem and the efforts its inhabitants are making in order to ensure its healthy survival in the face of tremendous transformational pressure. It is a journey to the origins of one of the most significant consumer industries. A tour-de-force of journalism and analysis with a human face, it resists polemics and prescriptions, instead letting the many players in this global drama make their larger point: that healthy, honest work for fair trade markets is a win-win deal for all involved in this dynamic, constantly challenged industry.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Rachel Louise Snyder has written for the New York Times Magazine, Slate, Glamour, Jane, Salon and the New Republic. She is a regular contributor to public radio's "Marketplace:, "This American Life: and "All Things Considered.: A chapter of the book which aired on "This American Life: recently won the Overseas Press Award. Snyder lives in Cambodia and Chicago, Illinois.
TITLE: FUGITIVE DENIM
PUBLICATION DATE: December 3, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-393-06180-2
PRICE: $26.95
PAGES: 352
Contact: Samantha Choy
212/790-9407
schoy [at] wwnorton [dot] com