The New York Times Book Review - Avis Cardella
The wastefulness encouraged by buying cheap and chasing the trends is obvious, but the hidden costs are even more galling. Cline contends that "disposable clothing" is damaging the environment, the economy and even our souls, and she presents a dense and sobering skein of data to support her thesis…Cline adheres to the "slow" mantra—"make, alter and mend"—and advises us to buy recycled, organic and locally produced clothing. She's a persuasive advocate…
Publishers Weekly
The good news for shoppers, notes Brooklyn journalist Cline in her engagingly pointed, earnestly researched study, is that cheap knockoffs of designer clothing can be found in discount stores almost instantly. The bad news is that “fast fashion” has killed America’s garment industry and wreaked havoc on wages and the environment, especially in China, where most of the cheap clothes and textiles are now made. A self-described shopaholic of low-end stores H&M and Forever 21, which emerged from the first budget retailers in the 1990s like Old Navy and Target, which marketed cheap fashion as chic, Cline traces the phenomenon soup-to-nuts from the sad consolidation of the big department stores and depletion of New York’s garment district, once supplying the massive labor needed for making clothes. From there, she takes her narrative to the factories overseas where workers are paid a fraction of what Americans earn. Cheap imports flooded the U.S. market, for example, shutting down textile mecca Inman Mills, in Greenville, S.C. Cline visited the root of inequity at massive, state-of-the-art factories in China where millions of “flavor-of-the-month” garments are manufactured for export, creating a new middle class for some Chinese while locking the lowest paid workers (also in Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Vietnam) in nonunion, slave-like poverty. As the fabrication of artificial fibers takes a walloping environmental toll, Cline urges, in her sharp wakeup call, a virtuous return to sewing, retooling, and buying eco-friendly “slow fashion.” (June)
From the Publisher
Cline is the Michael Pollan of fashion…Hysterical levels of sartorial consumption are terrible for the environment, for workers, and even, ironically, for the way we look.”
—Michelle Goldberg, Newsweek/The Daily Beast
“How did Americans end up with closets crammed with flimsy, ridiculously cheap garments? Elizabeth Cline travels the world to trace the rise of fast fashion and its cost in human misery, environmental damage, and common sense.”
—Katha Pollitt, columnist for The Nation
“Overdressed is eye-opening and definitely turns retailing on its head. Cline’s insightful book reveals the serious problems facing our industry today. The tremendous values and advantages of domestic production are often ignored in favor of a price point that makes clothing disposable.”
—Erica Wolf, executive director, Save the Garment Center
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"[An] engagingly pointed, earnestly researched study." —Publishers Weekly
Library Journal - Audio
04/01/2017
Spurred by the frequency with which she made purchases and a subsequent exploration of her closet that led her to discover she owned more than 600 articles of clothing, journalist Cline went deep into the world of cheap fashion and emerged with a well-researched and thought-provoking book. She examines the rise of fashion trends that necessitate that consumers keep a garment only until the next season or the next sale and the effect of such a mind-set on shoppers, designers, and retailers. Cline traveled as far as China to see the detriment factories and disposable clothing have on the environment and met with designers in New York to learn how fast fashion led to a rapid decline in the percentage of clothing produced in the United States. Furthermore, Cline asks listeners to consider the social consequences such consumer attitudes have on individuals and the connection between disposability and our increased disconnect from those with whom we share this planet. VERDICT While narrator Amy Melissa Bentley's matter-of-fact tone can sound monotonous at times, the book is comprehensive and provocative; a must-listen for anyone who recognizes her own closet in Cline's.—Samantha Facciolo, New York
