Book: Overdressed

Recently, I jumped on the bandwagon, and read the book Overdressed:  The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion (My review on Goodreads is here).  Overdressed focuses on the consequences of cheap/fast fashion, namely, that:

• Cheap/fast fashion clothing is often ill-fitting, poorly made, and constructed from low quality materials.
• Because it is impossible to make cheap/fast fashion within the US (due to labor laws and health and safety requirements as well as environmental laws) we import the vast majority of our clothing from places like China and Bangladesh where:
• Workers are not paid a living wage.
• The environment around the factories is heavily polluted making it difficult to breathe.
• Workers are sometimes working in unsafe conditions.
• Importing all of that clothing means that:
• There are fewer jobs for skilled laborers in the US.
• We often have no idea if our clothing was made in an ethical manner,
• The cost in fossil fuels is higher due to transporting the clothing to the US.
• Poor quality clothing leads to huge amounts of waste--we throw away or donate more clothes than can be recycled or sold secondhand or even sent to third-world countries.
• People are less inclined to buy clothing that is made in an ethical manner because the cost is double, triple, or quadruple the cost you pay for cheap fashion.
• People no longer recognize good quality clothing, that is, even if they wanted to buy better quality clothing, they no longer know what to look for.

The book has been much discussed on the sewing blogosphere, as you might imagine.  Many people sew their own clothing in order to address some of the problems listed above, particularly the issues related to construction and fit.  Certainly, having better-fitting, better quality clothing was the reason I got into garment sewing.  I think the real statement the book makes is about the ethics of disposable clothing.  I admit I pretty much chose to ignore the idea that anything bought from H&M or Old Navy was likely made by someone who didn't make a living wage in a factory that was polluting the environment.  It's really impossible to ignore those issues after having read the book.  Truly, it's now difficult for me to imagine going out and buying t-shirts at $7 a piece from Target.  On the other hand, it's still difficult for me to contemplate spending, say, $40 on a t-shirt.

Despite the sticker shock, it's my intention to buy more high quality clothing.  I'm also going to work on controlling impulse purchases, which is apparently the real take-home message from Overdressed.  From a Fashionista piece about Overdressed,

“Overdressed is about reigning in out-of-control consumption,” Cline said. “It’s not trying to make people feel bad for buying clothes that they can afford.” In other words, the book is really about finding solutions to our shopping addictions. “And luckily,” Cline said. “There’s not just one solution.”

The Fashionista article goes on to give Cline's tips on how to afford ethical fashion.  It's no surprise that one of the tips is learning to sew, not just so that you can make your own clothing but also so that you can upcycle and refashion things from your wardrobe to give them longer life or tweak and refashion things bought secondhand.

I was so inspired by the book that, when contemplating buying a dress for Easter, I went to my local Goodwill store instead of the mall and tried on a bunch of dresses.  I looked for clothes that said they were made in the US (because they were more likely to be of better quality), that I thought would be great with a few tweaks (most common issue, the skirt would be too long, but that can be easily fixed).  Ultimately, I decided to either wear the dress I wore for Christmas (what?  wear the same dress to two holidays in a row?  craziness!) or make myself a new skirt, but going to Goodwill was a good experience in looking at clothing with an eye toward tweaking and refashioning.  I already have some ideas for things in my wardrobe that I rarely wear.

Ultimately, I think the greatest personal benefit in reading Overdressed was making me think before I buy clothes and aligning my clothing choices with my personal ethics.  I cloth diaper my baby in part because of the huge environmental cost in using non-compostable disposable diapers.  Therefore, it make no sense to buy clothes that, because they are likely to fall apart, are destined for a landfill.   Being more thoughtful about my clothing purchases will also likely lead to owning more clothes that I love which will solve my current problem of having a closet full of clothes and "nothing to wear."

Not that there was ever any doubt

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Dedicated Reader You are always trying to find the time to get back to your book. You are convinced that the world would be a much better place if only everyone read more.
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Literate Good Citizen
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

The code doesn't seem to be working right on my blog so you can't see the little bars for how much I am each of those choices. I'm probably about 90% of a obsessive-compulsive bookworm and 10% of a fad reader.

It's done

Not the shirt, The Book. I finished it in 8 hours.

I was right about some things. I was wrong about some things. Some of the things that I was right about, I wish I had been wrong about. Some of the things I was wrong about I wish I had been right about.

Since I have no desire to ruin the book for anyone, I won't tell you what those things were. However, I will say that I liked the book. But, I'm kind of sad it's all over, now.

TOTAL MEDIA BLACKOUT STARTS NOW

I you haven't read up through book 6 in Harry Potter, you might want to skip this post.

I haven't discussed it much here, but I'm a bit of a Harry Potter fan. Well, "a bit" might be an understatement. I'm not going to be naming my first born child Harry, Ron, or Hermione (although Sirius might make it, you know, because my husband is an astronomer--kidding!) but I've probably read each of the books at least five times and some of the earlier ones more than that. And I went to a midnight party for each of the last two books. And, as anyone who is not living in a cave is aware, the seventh book will be released at midnight Friday.

But, I will not be attending a midnight party. Instead, I'm going to be at the rehearsal dinner for my brother's wedding on Sat. I'm a little sad about this, but that's the way it's gotta be. So, I've decided not to read the book until after the wedding. On Sunday, I'm sitting down and reading the entire thing with no stops (I'll be carrying it to the bathroom with me in case you are wondering). This is what I did with the 6th book, then I handed it over to John and said, read it as fast as you possibly can because the ending won't stay secret for very long. And, fortunately, he managed to make it through the book without reading any spoilers.

Today, a labmate told me about a website he found through CNN that has the important info from the book on it. And, being unwilling to resist, he went there and read it (he's filled with all kinds of remorse about it, now). The person had a photo of the book as some sort of confirmation that they were telling the truth. Now, I don't know how much I believe that the person truly had a copy of the book. They do have some pretty crazy security surrounding the book. However, just to make sure, I'm not turning on the tv, listening to the radio or looking at a newspaper, magazine, internet news site or reading anything but knitting blogs until Sunday. I'm also considering just wearing earplugs in between now and then to avoid overhearing anything (the wedding kind of scares me for that reason, maybe someone will have read it and they will discuss it and I'll overhear it, so to keep that from happening, I'm just going to get rip-roaring drunk so I won't remember anything anyone says anyway--though reading the book with a hangover might not be the most pleasant experience).

I'm a little fanatical about reading. I love to read and I love books. One of the things I hate about grad school is that I don't have time to do much reading for pleasure (I don't have much time to read scientific journals, either). Reading is my escape. There are certain books I only read when I'm sad or upset; they're like comfort food for my brain. I have several copies of certain books (usually a paperback and a hardcover; although I think I have four separate editions of A Wrinkle in Time, why yes, it is my favorite book, how did you guess?). I love the smell of books (books printed years ago have a different smell to them, have you ever noticed?) and the feel of the paper and the weight of the book in my hands. This is not to say that I treat them very carefully. You can tell which books I love most because they are the most beat-up (my Velveteen Rabbit books I call them). Lately, I've been listening to books more than reading them because I can do it while knitting and while on the bus and while driving and so on. It's not nearly as satisfying as reading them, but sometimes you have to make compromises.

So, what do I hope to see in this, the last book of the Harry Potter series?

• Resolution of whether Snape is good or evil. More on that later.
• Reason why Dumbledore trusted Snape.
• More about Lily. There were tantalizing hints in the last couple of books, but I'd really like to hear more about her.
• What's going on with Aunt Petunia? She seems to know more than she's letting on.
• What happens to the relationships? Who ends up marrying whom?
• What are all of the Horcruxes and where are they hidden? It seems like this would be a given, but I can't figure out how, in one book, in one year, Harry will find all five of the remaining ones when it took Dumbledore years to find two and destroy one.
• The final battle between Harry and Voldemort (again, this is a given, but it is something I'm looking forward to reading about).

And, for the record, to keep me honest, here are my predictions:

• Snape, while a mean old bastard, is on the good side. There are many, many reasons why I think this, but I think deep down the real reason is I don't want Dumbledore to have been wrong.
• Dumbledore is really dead and is not going to somehow show up and say, ha, ha, just kidding, I've been alive all this time.
• Harry will somehow be able to get advice from Dumbledore--most likely through the portrait in the headmaster's office.
• Dumbledore will have stored some key memories in jars (like why he trusted Snape, for instance) and Harry will be able to access these through the Pensieve.
  
• Lives or dies:

• Harry: lives
• Ron: lives
• Hermione: lives
• Ginny Weasley: lives
• Neville: lives
• Luna: dies
  
• Snape: dies saving Harry or dies in such a way that allows Harry to defeat Voldemort
  
• Other teachers (including McGonagall): live
  
• Lupin: lives
• Tonks: lives (marries Lupin)
  
• Percy Weasley: dies (okay, I think at least one of the Weasleys dies and I like Percy the least, so I'm going to say him; I'd be okay with Charlie dying, though, too)
• Draco: lives
• Bellatrix: dies (Neville gets to kill her)
• Lucius Malfoy: dies (Voldemort kills him)
  
• Rest of the Death Eaters: live (they will still need to be hunted down at the end of the book, or they will be in prison)
• Voldemort: dies (of course!)
  

That's it. That's all I'm willing to go on record saying. I think, in some ways, finishing this book won't be nearly as fun as finishing the others because we won't all be able to sit around and offer our theories on what's going to happen. That's been a large part of the fun--for me, anyway.

So, I might not be on the blog for awhile, seeing as how I'm leaving for the wilds of Iowa and don't know what kind of internet access I'll have. Have a good weekend everyone and happy reading!