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The Fabric of Globalization

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Image via http://whereamiwearing.com/
Go take a look at the tags on some of your favorite clothes.
The cotton t-shirts alone will likely comprise maps of Central America and Southeast Asia.  While a vast majority of the World’s cotton is grown in the American Southwest, very few cotton t-shirts are produced here. Factories in China, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Honduras, Nicaragua, and the Dominican Republic pay workers below a livable wage so that stores like Walmart, Target, Forever XXI, and H&M can lower prices and increase profits.
This semester I am taking an honors seminar course at the University of Louisville entitled The Fabric of Globalization. While this class was not my first choice, it has quickly become one of my favorite classes. We discuss the globalization of the garment industry, tracing the life of our clothing from production of the fabric through construction, to stores, to wear and maintenance, and then finally disposal.
The goal for the semester that we have established as a class is to become an “engaged consumer.”  This means knowing where and how your clothes are made and what implications that has for the workers, the prices, and the environment.
There exists a myriad of resources to learn more about factory conditions around the World.  In Fabric we have based our discussions about these topics on our readings of the following three books:
Each of these books traces the lifetime of clothing.  Timmerman focuses on the factories that produce some of his favorite articles of clothing.  He visits factories in Bangladesh, China, the US, and Honduras in order to compare conditions and try to figure out how to interpret those comparisons.  He found that each country was at a different level of industrialization and social development that put them each a unique position to enter into the globalization of the garment industry.
Cline focus more on the point of sale of clothing in the United States.  She talks to designers, fashion bloggers, thrift store employees, etc. trying to uncover how the American market has evolved to the current state of “fast fashion” where consumers are fast to buy and fast to dispose.  In this cycle, clothing is lower quality because consumers care less about the longevity of wear in preference of quick changing fashion trends.
Finally, Rivoli with a Ph.D. in Finance and International Economics traces the entire life of a t-shirt with particular focus on the economic impact of each step of the process from cotton growers in Texas to used clothing donated and resold in East Africa after being discarded by American thrift stores.  Her analysis of the markets and forces that have driven the evolution of consumer culture in the West.  Each of these books adds to the conversation about the production of clothing and how we can change our actions to be most beneficial to the various productions aspects of the industry.
Each book looks into companies that appear to be “doing it right” in that they make an effort to manufacture a product that is of good quality with as small an environmental impact as possible, to create safe working environments, and to pay their employees a decent wage.  One such company is Alta Gracia Apparel in the Dominican Republic.  Alta Gracia has committed themselves to paying their employees a “livable wage” regardless of what the lower legal minimum wage requirement.  The company make university logo apparel for a number of American colleges and universities.  They have made great strides in supporting their employees and creating a quality product for their consumers.  Numerous other companies have been making similar progress towards “doing it right.”  Consumers, with just a quick internet search can find which companies and retailers are attempting to change the standards of social responsibility in the garment industry.


With the goal being heightened awareness of our decisions regarding the garment industry, the next step is to look at what we do with our clothes when we are done with them.  Maybe they don’t fit anymore, maybe they are outdated, maybe you just don’t like them anymore.  For whatever reason, clothes are phased out of our wardrobes all the time.  The question becomes, where do they go?  You could try to alter an item to fix whatever problem has made it unappealing as is.  You could pass the item on to a sibling or friend.  You could donate it to Goodwill or some other thrift store. Or, finally, you could throw it away.
I would recommend any of these options, except the last.
Through a lens environmental conservationism, anytime you can reuse or recycle an item is preferred to throwing it in the trash.  Regarding clothing, unwanted items have a number of potential new uses other than garbage.
The easiest option is donation, or recycling clothing.  When you are finally able to break that emotional connection with an old article of clothing, it becomes easy to throw it in a Goodwill box.  When that box is full, drive it down to your local thrift store.  This option provides a number of benefits.  First and foremost, those items stay out of a landfill. Second, you get to feel good about the first fact. And, finally, you can request a receipt for your donation and claim it on your taxes.
The more difficult option, is to find ways to reuse garments for yourself.  It’s easier to pass along an item than it is to try to refashion it into something usable. As the art of sewing dies among the younger generations, altering and reworking items seems less and less possible.  The age of mending clothing has devolved from nearly reproducing an item to barely being able to replace broken buttons.  Old t-shirts can be refashioned into quilts, pillowcases, or even household rags.  In fact, many of the articles of clothing donated to thrift stores that are not resold as they are, end up being sold to clothing graders who sift out any fabric worth reusing and the rest is cut up and made into industrial rags.

 All this considered, there is no straightforward answer to the questions faced by the “engaged consumer.”  Every decision made within the garment industry will have pros and cons.  So, the daily challenge is to be as informed as possible about the clothing we wear.  Ask yourself: Where was this shirt made? Who made it? Under what conditions? A focus on such concerns will lead to more informed decision making and, hopefully, the social pressure required to change the way the market operates.
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