INTRODUCTION
Its parent company: “Inditex’s Net Sales Rise 9 Percent to €25.34 Billion in Fiscal 2017,” Inditex, March 14, 2018, https://www.inditex.com/article?articleId=552792.
Zara made up two-thirds: Inditex Annual Report, 2017, 16, https://static.inditex.com/annual_report_2017/assets/pdf/memoria_en.pdf.
The jacket, which came: Gabriella Pailla, “Is Melania’s Infamous Zara Jacket a Ripoff of Another Designer?” The Cut, June 22, 2018, https://www.thecut.com/2018/06/melanias-zara-jacket-r13-ripoff.html.
At the time workers were: Chase Peterson-Withorn, “The Full List of Every American Billionaire 2016,” Forbes, March 1, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chasewithorn/2016/03/01/the-full-list-of-every-american-billionaire-2016/.
Almost one kilogram: “The Deadly Chemicals in Cotton,” Environmental Justice Foundation, 2007, http://www.cottoncampaign.org/uploads/3/9/4/7/39474145/2007_ejf_deadlychemicalsincotton.pdf.
In 2013, the Center for Media: “Brick by Brick: The State of the Shopping Center,” Nielson, May 17, 2013, https://www.nielsen.com/us/en/insights/report/2013/brick-by-brick--the-state-of-the-shopping-center/.
In 2018, that averaged sixty-eight: Alexandra Schwartz, “Rent the Runway Wants to Lend You Your Look,” New Yorker, October 22, 2018, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/10/22/rent-the-runway-wants-to-lend-you-your-look.
the world’s citizens: Andrew Morgan, The True Cost, documentary (Life Is My Movie Entertainment, 2015).
And if the global population: John Kerr and John Landry, “The Pulse of the Fashion Industry,” Boston Consulting Group and Global Fashion Agenda, May 2017, 8.
In Tokyo: Claire Press, “Why the Fashion Industry Is Out of Control,” Australian Financial Review, April 23, 2016, https://www.afr.com/lifestyle/fashion/why-the-fashion-industry-is-out-of-control-20160419-goa5ic.
“The expectation is to keep”: Dilys Williams, interview with the author, London, December 16, 2016.
Up until the late: Stephanie Vatz, “Why America Stopped Making Its Own Clothes,” KQED News, May 24, 2013, https://www.kqed.org/lowdown/7939/madeinamerica.
$2.4-trillion: Schwartz, “Rent the Runway.”
In 1991, 56.2 percent: Stephanie Clifford, “U.S. Textile Plants Return, With Floors Largely Empty of People,” New York Times, September 12, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/20/business/us-textile-factories-return.html.
Once-vibrant industrial: Kate Abnett, “Does Reshoring Fashion Manufacturing Make Sense?” Business of Fashion, March 9, 2016, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/can-fashion-manufacturing-come-home.
The same went down: “Global Fashion Statistics—International Apparel,” Fashion United, 2018.
In 2017, US apparel exports: “Value of the U.S. Apparel Trade Worldwide from 2007 to 2017,” Statista, n.d., https://www.statista.com/statistics/242290/value-of-the-us-apparel-trade-worldwide/.
In 2017, Britain: UK Fashion and Textiles Association, by email, March 4, 2019.
In the summer of 2012: Steve Denning, “Why Are the US Olympic Uniforms Being Made in China?” Forbes, July 23, 2012, https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2012/07/23/why-are-the-us-olympic-uniforms-being-made-in-china.
According to a 2016 poll: Diana Verde Nieto, “What Does ‘Made in America’ Luxury Really Look Like?” Luxury Society, March 20, 2017, https://www.luxurysociety.com/en/articles/2017/03/what-does-made-america-luxury-really-look/.
In 2018, five of: Luisa Kroll and Kerry Dolan, “Meet the Members of the Three-Comma Club,” Forbes, March 6, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/billionaires/#720a681d251c.
Fashion employs one: Morgan, The True Cost.
Fewer than 2 percent: Maxine Bédat and Michael Shank, “There Is a Major Climate Issue Hiding in Your Closet: Fast Fashion,” Fast Company, November 11, 2016, https://www.fastcompany.com/3065532/there-is-a-major-climate-issue-hiding-in-your-closet-fast-fashion.
The World Bank estimates: Julia Jacobo, “How Sustainable Brands Are Turning Their Backs on Fast Fashion Trend,” ABC News, September 13, 2016, https://abcnews.go.com/US/sustainable-brands-turning-backs-fast-fashion-trend/story?id=39590457.
It releases 10 percent: Nathalie Remy, Eveline Speelman, and Steven Swartz, “Style That’s Sustainable: A New Fast-Fashion Formula,” McKinsey & Company, October 2016.
The fashion industry devours: Kate Abnett, “Three Years After Rana Plaza, Has Anything Changed?” Business of Fashion, April 19, 2016, https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/voices/discussions/can-fashion-industry-become-sustainable/-years-on-from-rana-plaza-has-anything-changed-sustainability-safety-worker-welfare.
The creation of: Marianna Kerppola et al., “H&M’s Global Supply Chain Management Sustainability: Factories and Fast Fashion,” University of Michigan, February 8, 2014.
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has stated: “The Impact of a Cotton T-Shirt,” World Wildlife Fund, January 16, 2013, https://www.worldwildlife.org/stories/the-impact-of-a-cotton-t-shirt.
Synthetic fabrics release: Echo Huang, “The Once Pristine Waters of Antarctica Now Contain Plastic Fibers,” Quartz, June 7, 2018, https://qz.com/1299485/antarcticas-waters-now-contain-plastic-fibers/.
Of the more than 100 billion: Alexandra Schwartz, “Rent the Runway.”
In the last twenty years: Alden Wicker, “Fast Fashion Is Creating an Environmental Crisis,” Newsweek, September 1, 2016, https://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/09/old-clothes-fashion-waste-crisis-494824.html.
The European Union disposes: Kerr and Landry, “Pulse of the Fashion Industry,” 12.
In 2017, USAID: “Overview of the Used Clothing Market in East Africa,” United States Agency for International Development, July 2017.
Kenya alone: “Global Business of Secondhand Clothes Thrive in Africa,” Africa News, April 26, 2018, http://www.africanews.com/2018/04/26/global-business-of-secondhand-clothes-thrive-in-africa-business-africa//.
In response, in 2018, the Trump: Abdi Latif Dahir and Yomi Kazeem, “Trump’s ‘Trade War’ Includes Punishing Africans for Refusing Second-hand American Clothes,” Quartz Africa, April 5, 2018, https://qz.com/africa/1245015/trump-trade-war-us-suspends-rwanda-agoa-eligibility-over-secondhand-clothes-ban/.
The Environmental Protection: “Textiles: Material-Specific Data,” epa.gov. n.d.
In the UK, 9,513: Press, “Why the Fashion Industry Is Out of Control.”
textiles are the: Anat Keinan and Sandrine Crener, “Stella McCartney,” Harvard Business School, November 22, 2016.
The National Retail Federation: Jessica Dickler, “Black Friday Weekend: Record $52.4 Billion Spent,” CNN Money, November 27, 2011, https://money.cnn.com/2011/11/27/pf/black_friday/index.htm.
CHAPTER ONE: READY TO WEAR
Katrantzou’s fabric expert: Raffaella Mandriota, interview with the author, Villepinte, February 13, 2018. All Mandriota quotes come from this interview.
Katrantzou was born: Mary Katrantzou, interview with the author, London, February 7, 2018. All Katrantzou quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
For her MA degree show: Hanna Rose Iverson, “Started From the Bottom: Mary Katrantzou to Hannah Griffiths,” Brighton Fashion Week, n.d., http://www.brightonfashionweek.com/blog/started-mary-k.
in early 2018, she sold: Samantha Conti, “Wendy Yu Invests in Mary Katrantzou, Eyes Growth in China,” Women’s Wear Daily, January 22, 2018.
Weeks later, Yu: Nancy Chilton, “Wendy Yu Endows Lead Curatorial Position at the Costume Institute,” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, March 7, 2018.
Yu earmarked: Conti, “Wendy Yu Invests in Mary Katrantzou, Eyes Growth in China.”
Vogue.com: Sarah Mower, “Mary Katrantzou,” Vogue.com, September 15, 2018, https://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/spring-2019-ready-to-wear/mary-katrantzou.
The New York Times: Vanessa Friedman, “The Meghan Markle Non-Effect,” New York Times, September 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/18/fashion/london-fashion-week-spring-2019-erdem-christopher-kane.html.
Women’s Wear: Samantha Conti, “The Collections: Mary Katrantzou,” Women’s Wear Daily, September 17, 2018.
Nobody really liked Richard: Stephen Yafa, Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber (New York: Penguin, 2005), 45.
“A plain almost . . .”: Thomas Carlyle, The Works of Thomas Carlyle (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 182.
The days were long: “Working Conditions for Children,” Cromfordmills.org.uk, n.d., https://www.cromfordmills.org.uk/sites/default/files/attachments/Source%202%20-%20Child%20Workers.pdf.
At first, there were two: Yafa, Cotton, 55.
Local textile factory: Yafa, Cotton, 63.
By 1790, Arkwright: Yafa, Cotton, 67.
In 1810, a prominent: Pietra Rivoli, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy: An Economist Examines the Markets, Power, and Politics of World Trade (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2015), 96.
In one of history’s: Yafa, Cotton, 107.
Garment manufacturing: Daniel Soyer, “Introduction: The Rise and Fall of the Garment Industry in New York City,” in A Coat of Many Colors: Immigration, Globalization, and Reform in New York City’s Garment Industry, Daniel Soyer, ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 6–7.
America’s busiest port: Hadassa Kosak, “Tailors and Troublemakers: Jewish Militancy in the New York Garment Industry, 1889-1910,” in A Coat of Many Colors: Immigration, Globalization, and Reform in New York City’s Garment Industry, Daniel Soyer, ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 118.
As the New York City: Nancy L. Green, “From Downtown Tenements to Midtown Lofts,” in A Coat of Many Colors: Immigration, Globalization, and Reform in New York City’s Garment Industry, Daniel Soyer, ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 34.
in 1931, the New York: “The Economic Impact of the Fashion Industry,” Joint Economic Committee, United States Congress, February 6, 2015.
“Everybody dressed up”: Bill Blass, “American Gals,” New Yorker, April 14, 1997, 74.
“Black sheaths caught”: “On and Off the Avenue: Feminine Fashions,” New Yorker, September 20, 1941.
Joan Crawford would: Nancy Hardin and Lois Long, “Luxury, Inc.,” New Yorker, March 31, 1934.
Blass landed: Blass, “American Gals.”
the Garment District alone: Soyer, “Introduction,” 14–15.
Blass was one of them: Bill Blass and Cathy Horyn, Bare Blass (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 19–21.
By the close of the 1950s: Green, “From Downtown Tenements to Midtown Lofts,” 29.
The reason was: Soyer, “Introduction,” 16.
Manhattan’s apparel workers: Soyer, “Introduction,” 18.
In 1973, four hundred thousand: Marc Karimzadeh, “Ralph Lauren Boosts N.Y. Manufacturing Initiative,” Women’s Wear Daily, October 23, 2013.
In 1965, there were: Soyer, “Introduction,” 20.
In all, 70 percent: Stephanie Vatz, “Why America Stopped Making Its Own Clothes,” KQED News, May 24, 2013.
The North American Free Trade Agreement: “Ronald Reagan’s Announcement for Presidential Candidacy,” November 13, 1979, reaganlibrary.gov, https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/11-13-79.
By the late 1950s: Alexandra Harney, The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 20.
Washington responded: Rivoli, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, 160.
Even with those: Harney, The China Price, 21.
In 1960, about 10 percent: Soyer, “Introduction,” 16.
“Never!” . . . Liz Claiborne: Jerome Chazen, My Life at Liz Claiborne: How We Broke the Rules and Built the Largest Fashion Company in the World (Bloomington, IN: AuthorHouse, 2011), pp. 52–57.
Before long, Liz: Chazen, My Life at Liz Claiborne, 67.
To achieve that: Harney, The China Price, 20.
The resulting job flight: “‘Made in America’ Month Bill Goes to White House,” Daily News Record, October 15, 1986.
Unions and trade groups: Janice H. Hammond and Maura G. Kelly, “Quick Response in the Apparel Industry,” Harvard Business School, 1990.
Ortega is a lifelong: Pankaj Ghemawat and José Luis Nueno, “Zara: Fast Fashion,” Harvard Business School, December 21, 2006, 7.
NAFTA would eliminate: “20 Things You Need to Know About NAFTA,” Baltimore Sun, November 14, 1993.
“NAFTA means jobs”: William F. Jasper, “From NAFTA to the NAU: NAFTA and the Security and Prosperity Partnership Are Gradual Steps toward Merging the United States, Mexico, and Canada into a North American Union,” New American, April 16, 2007.
Texan billionaire: “The ‘Great Debate’ Over NAFTA,” New York Times, November 9, 1993.
By 2006, NAFTA was: Jasper, “From NAFTA to the NAU.”
In 2003, the World Bank: Byron L. Dorgan, Take This Job and Ship It: How Corporate Greed and Brain-Dead Politics Are Selling Out America (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2006), 52.
Meanwhile, from 2003: Rivoli, The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy, 277.
By 2000, retail spending: Ghemawat and Nueno, “Zara: Fast Fashion,” 4.
In 2001, Zara had: Ghemawat and Nueno, 8.
That May, Zara’s parent: “Zara’s Stunning Share Debut,” BBC News, May 23, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/1346919.stm.
Between 2001: “#46 Zara,” Forbes.com, May 2016, https://www.forbes.com/companies/zara/.
But in 2015, Imran Amed: Imran Amed and Kate Abnett, “Inditex: Agile Fashion Force,” Business of Fashion, March 30, 2015, https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/voices/discussions/can-fashion-industry-become-sustainable/inditex-agile-fashion-force.
“The scale was extraordinary”: Imran Amed, interview with the author, Paris, March 4, 2019.
On the La Coruña campus: Amed and Abnett, “Inditex: Agile Fashion Force.”
Twice a week: Deborah Weinswig, “Retailers Should Think Like Zara: What We Learned at the August Magic Trade Show,” Forbes, August 28, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahweinswig/2017/08/28/retailers-should-think-like-zara-what-we-learned-at-the-august-magic-trade-show/#3a47060e3e52.
If a style doesn’t: Amed and Abnett, “Inditex: Agile Fashion Force.”
He announced his: Angela Gonzaler-Rodriguez, “Amancio Ortega Retires: The Founder of Inditex Drops over 50 Executive Positions,” Fashion United, December 18, 2017, https://fashionunited.com/executive/management/amancio-ortega-retires-the-founder-of-inditex-drops-over-50-executive-positions/2017121818805.
Forbes declared he: “Forbes Ortega Page,” n.d., https://www.forbes.com/profile/amancio-ortega/.
In 2017, Zara did: Inditex Annual Report, 2017, 16.
Between 2000 and 2014: Nathalie Remy, Eveline Speelman, and Steven Swartz, “Style That’s Sustainable: A New Fast-Fashion Formula,” McKinsey & Company, October 2016.
US consumer prices: Chico Harlan, “The Hidden Coast of Made-in-America Retail Bargains,” Washington Post, December 30, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/30/the-hidden-cost-of-made-in-america-retail-bargains/?utm_term=.2134d0e18fb2.
As McKinsey reported: Remy, Speelman, and Swartz, “Style That’s Sustainable.”
taunting us to indulge: Marc Bain, “Fast Fashion Has Made Some of the Richest Men on Earth,” Quartz, August 2, 2016, https://qz.com/747242/fast-fashion-has-made-some-of-the-richest-men-on-earth/.
Fast fashion’s target audience: “Speed Is This Season’s Hottest Fashion Trend,” Accenture, April 5, 2017, https://newsroom.accenture.com/news/speed-is-this-seasons-hottest-fashion-trend-according-to-research-from-kurt-salmon-part-of-accenture-strategy.htm.
“Even designer collections”: “Jean Paul Gaultier Ending RTW to Focus on Couture, Beauty,” Women’s Wear Daily, September 25, 2014.
The hamster-wheel cycle: “AP Interview: Gaultier on Madonna and Saying ‘Au Revoir,’” Associated Press, April 2, 2015, https://www.apnews.com/4ae31d2efdee43da920cc0538032268c.
in 2011, Forbes: “Has the Fast Fashion Cycle Created an Ex-Post Licensing System?,” Fashion Law, August 13, 2015.
That same year, it: Harry Wallop, “Primark Profits Fall on High Cotton Prices,” Telegraph, November 8, 2011, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector /retailandconsumer/8876145/Primark-profits-fall-on-high-cotton-prices.html.
CHAPTER TWO: THE PRICE OF FURIOUS FASHION
“Wow, that was quick”: Mar Martinez, interview with the author, Los Angeles, October 10, 2017. All Martinez quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
Today, Los Angeles is: Ilse Metchek, interview with the author, Los Angeles, October 6, 2017. All Metchek quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
Martinez estimated: Martinez, interview with the author.
In 1995: George White, “Workers Held in Near-Slavery, Officials Say,” Los Angeles Times, August 3, 1995.
According to a UCLA Labor Center: Janna Shadduck-Hernández, Marissa Nuncio, Zacil Pech, Mar Martinez, “Dirty Threads, Dangerous Factories: Health and Safety in Los Angeles’ Fashion Industry,” UCLA Labor Center, 2016, https://www.labor.ucla.edu/publication/dirty-threads-dangerous-factories-health-and-safety-in-los-angeles-fashion-industry/.
In 2016, the US: Natalie Kitroeff and Victoria Kim, “Behind a $13 Shirt, a $6-an-Hour Worker,” Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2017, https://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-forever-21-factory-workers/.
Forever 21 and Russe: Ben Bergman, “Labor Department Investigation Finds 85 Percent of LA Garment Factories Break Wage Rules,” 89.3 KPCC, November 17, 2016, https://www.scpr.org/news/2016/11/17/66200/labor-department-investigation-finds-85-percent-of/.
Most of these suppliers: Jason McGahan, “L.A. Fashion District a Fire Trap for Garment Workers, Study Finds,” L.A. Weekly, December 12, 2016.
As Communist Manifesto: Marx Engels Collected Works, Volume 38 (New York: International Publishers, 1846), 95, http://hiaw.org/defcon6/works/1846/letters/46_12_28.html.
Mill workers: Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 75.
The average life expectancy: Stephen Yafa, Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber (New York: Penguin 2005), 103.
Epidemics—cholera: Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, 118.
alcoholism surged: Engels, 138.
Half of Britain’s: Engels, 152.
The endless hours: Engels, 164–166.
In the summer of 1843: Engels, 173–175.
Standing for hours: Engels, 170–173.
But the new regulations: Engels, 182.
With their philanthropic: Engels, 283.
In 1890, two young: Nancy C. Carnevale, “Culture of Work: Italian Immigrant Women Homeworkers in the New York City Garment Industry, 1890-1914,” in A Coat of Many Colors: Immigration, Globalization, and Reform in New York City’s Garment Industry, Daniel Soyer, ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 164.
The US House: US House of Representatives, 52nd Congress, 2nd Session, “Report of the Committee of Manufactures on the Sweating System” (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, January 20, 1893).
So activist Florence Kelley: Eileen Boris, “Social Responsibility on a Global Level: The National Consumers League, Fair Labor, and Worker Rights at Century’s End,” in A Coat of Many Colors: Immigration, Globalization, and Reform in New York City’s Garment Industry, Daniel Soyer, ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005), 214–16.
In 1899, the National Consumers: Marlis Schweitzer, When Broadway Was the Runway: Theater, Fashion, and American Culture (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009), 75.
Some retailers balked: Boris, “Social Responsibility on a Global Level,” 215.
Within five years: Boris, 215.
In all, 146: David Von Drehle, Triangle: The Fire That Changed America (New York: Grove Press, 2004), 167.
Except the Garment District: Blass and Horyn, Bare Blass, 19–22.
“Manufacturers did their . . .”: Blass and Horyn, 11.
Leslie Fay had long: “Fred Pomrantz, Founder of a Women’s Wear Daily,” New York Times, February 21, 1986, https://www.nytimes.com/1986/02/21/obituaries/fred-p-pomrantz-founder-of-a-women-s-wear-daily.html.
Fred’s Wharton-educated: Bernice Kanner, “Scandal on Seventh Avenue,” New York, June 23, 1993.
netted John Pomerantz: Teri Agins, “Loose Threads: Dressmaker Leslie Fay Is an Old-Style Firm That’s in a Modern Fix,” Wall Street Journal, February 23, 1993.
In 1986, Leslie Fay: Kanner, “Scandal on Seventh Avenue,” 40.
John Pomerantz received: Kanner, 42.
the company’s stock crashed: Kanner, 47.
Executives at the Wilkes-Barre: David Silverman, “What Leslie Fay’s Former CEO Learned From His Company’s Bankruptcy,” Harvard Business Review, April 20, 2010, https://hbr.org/2010/04/what-john-pomerantz-former-ceo.
They learned, to their: Bob Herbert, “In America; Leslie Fay’s Logic,” New York Times, June 19, 1994, https://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/19/opinion/in-america-leslie-fay-s-logic.html.
Levi Strauss’s Executive: Lance Compa and Tashia Hinchliffe-Darricarrère, “Enforcing International Labor Rights Through Corporate Codes of Conduct,” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law, 1995, 676, https://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=https://www.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=1178&context=articles.
the code was “to ensure”: Bob Ortega, In Sam We Trust: The Untold Story of Sam Walton and How Walmart Is Devouring America (New York: Times Books, 1998), 245.
Levi Strauss introduced: Frank Swoboda, “Sears Agrees to Police Its Suppliers,” Washington Post, March 31, 1992, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1992/03/31/sears-agrees-to-police-its-suppliers/636ef744-6794-4780-a984-2f9c293da6c7/.
The scene in the plant: Karl Schoenberger, Levi’s Children: Coming to Terms with Human Rights in the Global Marketplace (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000), 57.
Days after Levi’s: Swoboda, “Sears Agrees to Police Its Suppliers.”
Eventually, the factory’s: Schoenberger, Levi’s Children, 65.
To enforce the codes: Alexandra Harney, The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 197–99.
In 2003, American rap stars: “Southeast Textiles, S.A. (SETISA) Choloma, Cortes, Honduras” New York: National Labor Committee, October 2003.
The industrial zone: “Southeast Textiles, S.A. (SETISA) Choloma, Cortes, Honduras.”
Supervisors would “stand”: “Are We Exporting American Jobs?” Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing, U.S. Senate, November 14, 2003, https://www.dpc.senate.gov/hearings/hearing7/gonzales.pdf.
Combs understood this news: “Major Turn-Around at Sean P. Diddy Combs’ Factory SETISA in Honduras,” National Labor Committee, December 17, 2003.
“Really, you work”: “Are We Exporting American Jobs?” Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing.
In fiscal year 2018: Ibrahim Hossain Ovi, “RMG Exports Saw 8.76 Percent Growth Last Fiscal Year,” Dhaka Tribune, July 5, 2018, https://www.dhakatribune.com/business/2018/07/05/rmg-exports-saw-8-76-growth-last-fiscal-year.
ranking Bangladesh: Refayet Ullah Mirdha, “Bangladesh Remains the Second Biggest Apparel Exporter,” Daily Star, August 2, 2018, https://www.thedailystar.net/business/export/bangladesh-remains-the-second-biggest-apparel-exporter-1614856.
“Eighty-three percent”: Siddiqur Rahman, interview with the author, Dhaka, Bangladesh, April 21, 2018.
like Judy Gearhart, the head: Judy Gearhart, interview with the author, Washington, DC, January 25, 2017. All Gearhart quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
But on April 11: “Spectrum Collapse: Eight Years on and Still Little Action on Safety,” cleanclothes.org, April 10, 2013, https://cleanclothes.org/news/2013/04/11/spectrum-collapse-eight-years-on-and-still-little-action-on-safety.
In 2018, 10 percent: Liana Foxvog, interview with the author, by Skype, April 13, 2018. All Foxvog quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
In December 2010: Björn Claeson, “Deadly Secrets,” International Labor Rights Forum, December 2012, 22.
The scene was familiar: Saad Hammadi and Matthew Taylor, “Workers Jump to Their Deaths as Fire Engulfs Factory Making Clothes for Gap,” Guardian, December 14, 2010, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/dec/14/bangladesh-clothes-factory-workers-jump-to-death.
Only then did PVH Corp.: Scott Nova, interview with the author, by Skype, April 16, 2018.
On a November evening: Tyler McCall, “Fashioning Workers’ Rights for Women,” Fashionista, May 10, 2013, https://fashionista.com/2013/05/from-the-runways-of-new-york-to-the-factories-of-dhaka-fashioning-workers-rights-for-women.
locked the door: “Survivor of Bangladesh’s Tazreen Factory Fire Urges U.S. Retailers to Stop Blocking Worker Safety,” Democracy Now, April 25, 2013, https://www.democracynow.org/2013/4/25/survivor_of_bangladeshs_tazreen_factory_fire.
Fire alarms sounded: “Survivor of Bangladesh’s Tazreen Factory Fire Urges U.S. Retailers to Stop Blocking Worker Safety.”
Investigators later found: Liana Foxvog et al., “Still Waiting,” Clean Clothes Campaign International Labor Rights Forum, 2013.
Sohel Rana was a thug: Jim Yardley, “The Most Hated Bangladeshi, Toppled from a Shady Empire,” New York Times, April 30, 2013, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/01/world/asia/bangladesh-garment-industry-reliant-on-flimsy-oversight.html.
“The crack was so huge”: Shila Begum, interview with the author, Savar, Bangladesh, April 23, 2018. All Begum quotes come from this interview.
Terrified employees poured: Yardley, “The Most Hated Bangladeshi, Toppled from a Shady Empire.”
Around eight a.m. the following: Mahmudul Hassan Hridoy, interview with the author, Savar, Bangladesh, April 23, 2018. All Hridoy quotes come from this interview.
At five a.m. Stockholm time: Marianna Kerppola et al., “H&M’s Global Supply Chain Management Sustainability: Factories and Fast Fashion,” University of Michigan, February 8, 2014.
“None of”: “H&M: Comment on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh,” H&M, May 7, 2013.
When confronted: Foxvog et al., “Still Waiting.”
A slew: Lauren McCauley, “Critics Blast US Retailers’ Corporate-Dominated Factory Safety ‘Sham,’” Common Dreams, July 11, 2013.
Yet Americans: Stephanie Clifford, “That ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ Premium,” Women’s Wear Daily, November 30, 2013.
NYU’s Stern Center: Paul M. Barrett, Dorothée Baumann-Pauly, and April Gu, “Five Years After Rana Plaza: The Way Forward” (NYC Stern Center for Business and Human Rights, April 2018), 2, https://issuu.com/nyusterncenterforbusinessandhumanri/docs/nyu_bangladesh_ranaplaza_final_rele?e=31640827/64580941.
He said Walmart: Repeated attempts to contact each brand for comment or confirmation went unanswered.
According to the introduction: Attempts to contact each of Camaïeu and Roadrunner to confirm went unanswered; CJ Apparel said it did not source in Bangladesh.
Tazreen’s owner: “Four Years Since the Tazreen Factory Fire: Justice Only Half Done,” Clean Clothes Campaign, November 24, 2016, https://cleanclothes.org/news/2016/11/24/four-years-since-the-tazreen-factory-fire-justice-only-half-done.
The trial: Md Sanaul Islam Tipu, “No Significant Progress in Trial Six Years After Tazreen Fashions Fire,” Dhaka Tribune, November 23, 2018, https://www.dhakatribune.com/bangladesh/2018/11/23/no-significant-progress-in-trial-six-years-after-tazreen-fashions-fire.
In 2016, Sohel Rana and seventeen: “Rana Plaza Owner, 17 Others Indicted,” Daily Star, June 15, 2016, https://www.thedailystar.net/frontpage/rana-plaza-owner-17-others-indicted-1239742.
A year later: “Rana Plaza Owner Jailed for Three Years Over Corruption,” Aljazeera.com, August 29, 2017, https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/08/rana-plaza-owner-jailed-years-corruption-170829161742916.html.
Terrorism has: Andrew Marszal and Chris Graham, “Twenty Hostages Killed in ‘Isil’ Attack on Dhaka Restaurant Popular with Foreigners,” Telegraph, July 2, 2016, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/07/01/gunmen-attack-restaurant-in-diplomatic-quarter-of-bangladeshi-ca/.
Fashion reps immediately: Anbarasan Ethirajan, “Islamic Attack Has Bangladesh Clothing Industry on Edge,” BBC News, August 17, 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-36904696.
In 2016, they staged: Maria Zimmermann, “Bangladesh: Sewing Fulltime for 61 Euros a Month,” dw.com, April 23, 2017, https://www.dw.com/en/bangladesh-sewing-full-time-for-61-euros-a-month/a-38553216.
All this because: Mark Anner, interview with the author, by Skype, April 18, 2018.
CHAPTER THREE: DIRTY LAUNDRY
The average American: Catherine Salfino, “In With the Old, In With the New,” Cotton Lifestyle Monitor, January 16, 2012, https://lifestylemonitor.cottoninc.com/in-with-the-old-in-with-the-new/.
buys four new pairs: Kathleen Webber, “How Fast Fashion Is Killing Rivers Worldwide,” EcoWatch, March 22, 2017, https://www.ecowatch.com/fast-fashion-riverblue-2318389169.html.
“They have expression”: Emma McClendon, Denim: Fashion’s Frontier (New York: Fashion Institute of Technology, 2016), 11.
The ancient Greek historian: Herodotus, The History of Herodotus, (New York: D. Appleton, 1889), 410.
When the Macedonian: James Augustin Brown Scherer, Cotton as a World Power: A Study in the Economic Interpretation of History (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1916), 6.
In 63 BC, the Roman official: Clinton G. Gilroy, The History of Silk, Cotton, Linen, Wool, and Other Fibrous Substances (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1845), 322.
two decades later, Caesar: The History of Cotton (Virginia Beach: Donning Company, 2015), 11.
121.4 million bales: James Johnson, Stephen MacDonald, Leslie Meyer, and Lyman Stone, “The World and United States Cotton Outlook,” U.S. Department of Agriculture, February 23, 2018, https://www.usda.gov/oce/forum/2018/commodities/Cotton.pdf.
more than one hundred: “World Cotton Market,” Cotton Australia, n.d., https://cottonaustralia.com.au/cotton-library/fact-sheets/cotton-fact-file-the-world-cotton-market.
America’s paper currency: “U.S. Currency: How Money is Made—Paper and Ink,” Bureau of Engraving and Printing, U.S. Department of the Treasure, n.d., https://www.moneyfactory.gov/hmimpaperandink.html.
Cotton’s most common use: Stacy Howell, “How Much of the World’s Clothing Is Made from Cotton?” Livestrong, July 21, 2015.
Nonorganic cotton—known: “The Deadly Chemicals in Cotton,” Environmental Justice Foundation, December 31, 2007.
though it is grown: Katy Willis, “Cotton’s Dirty Secret: Are You Wearing This Toxic Crop?” Timetocleanse.com, March 4, 2015, https://www.timetocleanse.com/cottons-dirty-secret/.
The World Health: Melody Meyer, “Dig Deeper, Chemical Cotton,” Rodale Institute, February 4, 2014, https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/chemical-cotton.
to grow one kilo: Stephen Leahy, “World Water Day: The Cost of Cotton in Water-Challenged India,” Guardian, March 20, 2015, https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2015/mar/20/cost-cotton-water-challenged-india-world-water-day.
approximately 5,000 gallons: Rhonda P. Hill, “1,000 Gallons of Water,” Edge, August 27, 2016, https://edgexpo.com/2016/08/27/1000-gallons-of-water/.
If fashion production maintains: John Kerr and John Landry, “The Pulse of the Fashion Industry,” Boston Consulting Group and Global Fashion Agenda, May 2017, 11.
It was first cultivated: Jenny Balfour-Paul, Indigo: Egyptian Mummies to Blue Jeans (Buffalo, NY: Firefly, 2012), 69.
Like cotton, indigo: Balfour-Paul, 60.
If Strauss would cover the hefty: Lynn Downey, Levi Strauss: The Man Who Gave Blue Jeans to the World (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2016), 116.
Made of denim from Amoskeag: Downey, 137.
The Vault is watched over: Tracey Panek, interview with the author, San Francisco, October 13, 2017. All Panek quotes come from this interview.
standing about five feet six: Downey, Levi Strauss, 141, 192.
When he died in 1902: Downey, 239.
One of them, Sigmund: Stephen Yafa, Cotton: The Biography of a Revolutionary Fiber (New York: Penguin, 2014 ), 110.
“Jeans are sex”: Isabel Wilkinson, “The Story Behind Brooke Shields’s Famous Calvin Klein Jeans,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, December 2, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/t-magazine/fashion/brooke-shields-calvin-klein-jeans-ad-eighties.html.
The ad was so provocative: Wilkinson, “The Story Behind Brooke Shields’s Famous Calvin Klein Jeans.”
Klein sold: Matt W. Cody, Calvin Klein (New York: Chelsea House, 2013), https://books.google.fr/books?id=xPZbAgAAQBAJ&pg=PT57&lpg=PT57&dq=calvin+klein+sales+1980&source=bl&ots=0z9gFbW98H&sig=DotejBr4jDUeIuceo0hR_iMlj8E&hl=en&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=calvin%20klein%20sales%201980&f=false.
Jean sales rocketed: Yafa, Cotton, 230.
Preshrunk cotton: Yafa, 216.
The L.A.-based casualwear company: McClendon, Denim, 146.
By 2018, there were roughly: Akhi Akter, “Vietnamese Textile and Apparel Industry Moving Towards US$50 Billion by 2020,” Textile Today, February 3, 2018, https://www.textiletoday.com.bd/vietnamese-textile-apparel-industry-moving-towards-us50-billion-2020/.
In 2012, jeans production: “Production Value of Denim Jeans in Vietnam from 2012 to 2021,” Statista.com, n.d., https://www.statista.com/statistics/743835/denim-jeans-production-value-vietnam/.
the washhouses of Xintang: George Ayompe, “The ‘True Denim Capital of the World,’ Is a Disgrace to the Industry,” Aetuba.com, February 12, 2017, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/true-denim-capital-world-disgrace-industry-we-should-act-ayompe/.
as cotton expert Sally Fox: Sally Fox, interview with the author, Brooks, California, October 14, 2017. All Fox quotes come from this interview, phone calls or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
when the brand was reporting: Caroline Fairchild, “Does Levi Strauss Still Fit America?” Fortune, October 6, 2014, http://fortune.com/2014/09/18/levi-strauss-chip-bergh/.
For much of the twentieth century: Karl Schoenberger, Levi’s Children: Coming to Terms with Human Rights in the Marketplace (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2000), 25–31.
“It is more than paternalism”: Robert Howard, “Values Make the Company: An Interview with Robert Haas,” Harvard Business Review, October 1990, https://hbr.org/1990/09/values-make-the-company-an-interview-with-robert-haas.
Levi’s started selling at discounters: Teri Agins and Joann S. Lublin, “Levi Strauss Sees Philip Marineau As a Right Fit to Be Brand Builder,” Wall Street Journal, September 8, 1999, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB93674980745078128.
Levi’s announced it would close fourteen: Nina Munk, “How Levi’s Trashed a Great American Brand,” Fortune, April 12, 1999, http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/1999/04/12/258131/index.htm.
citing high labor costs: “Spotlight: Belgian Strike Protests Levi Strauss Plant Closings,” Los Angeles Times, October 2, 1998.
Annabelle Nichols, a straight-backed: Annabelle Nichols, interview with the author, Nashville, August 23, 2016. All Nichols quotes come from this interview.
The Knoxville facility: Suzanne Coile, “Levi’s Strauss Plant,” Our Life at Work, December 6, 2012.
It opened in 1953: “Back in the Day: Halting Those Denim Blues,” Knoxville News Sentinel, October 5, 2014, http://archive.knoxnews.com/business/back-in-the-day-halting-those-denim-blues-ep-648080710-354171531.html.
each about the size: Coile, “Levi’s Strauss Plant.”
On Monday, November 3, 1997: “Levi to Close 11 Plants, Cut a Third of Jobs,” Associated Press, November 4, 1997.
Levi’s swore it wasn’t: “Levi to Close 11 Plants, Cut a Third of Jobs.”
“dislocated workers”: Coile, “Levi’s Strauss Plant.”
That year alone, Levi’s: Schoenberger, Levi’s Children, 162.
Levi’s sales continued: Amy Doan, “Levi Strauss’ Frayed Fortunes,” Forbes, September 29, 2000.
The company announced more plant closings: Schoenberger, Levi’s Children, 54.
To execute the closures: Agins and Lublin, “Levi Strauss Sees Philip Marineau as a Right Fit to Be Brand Builder.”
That meant shutting down: Jenny Strasburg, “Appalachian Travails,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 16, 2002, https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/APPALACHIAN-TRAVAILS-A-tiny-Georgia-town-faces-2808292.php.
Most workers earned $8: Fred Dickey, “Levi Strauss and the Price We Pay,” Los Angeles Times Magazine, December 1, 2002.
Some took home as little as: Strasburg, “Appalachian Travails.”
The state opened an employment: Strasburg, “Appalachian Travails.”
In all, he sacked: “Levi Strauss & Co/On the Record: Phil Marineau,” San Francisco Chronicle, March 5, 2006, https://www.sfgate.com/business/ontherecord/article/LEVI-STRAUSS-CO-On-the-Record-Phil-Marineau-2521804.php.
In the midst of firing: “Levi’s Phil Marineau Could Net $4 Million,” Women’s Wear Daily, July 15, 2005.
At the close of those: Michael Liedtke, “Levi’s CEO to Step Down by End of Year,” Orange County Register, July 6, 2006, https://www.ocregister.com/2006/07/06/levi-strauss-ceo-to-step-down-after-seven-rocky-years/.
Monsanto introduced: Yafa, Cotton, 278.
in 2018, 94 percent: “Adoption of Genetically Engineered Crops in the U.S.,” United States Department of Agriculture, July 16, 2018, https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/adoption-of-genetically-engineered-crops-in-the-us.aspx.
Roundup is the world’s: Charles M. Benbrook, “Trends in the Glyphosate Herbicide Use in the United States and Globally,” U.S. National Library of Medicine: National Institutes of Health, February, 2, 2016, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5044953/.
In 1994, Patagonia founder: Yafa, Cotton, 291.
in 2015, the International: Michael Specter, “Roundup and Risk Assessment,” New Yorker, April 10, 2015, https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/roundup-and-risk-assessment.
Burglars in South: “Dog Poisoning with the Intention to Break into Houses,” South Africa Today, July 10, 2014, https://southafricatoday.net/south-africa-news/dog-poisoning-with-the-intention-to-break-into-houses/.
“the pressure of capital markets”: David Weil, interview with the author, Boston, September 28, 2017. All Weil quotes come from this interview.
CHAPTER FOUR: FIELD TO FORM
“They used cotton”: Natalie Chanin, interview with the author, Florence, Alabama, August 25, 2016. All Chanin quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
“NAFTA destroyed”: Terry Wylie, by email, August 24, 2018.
His signature look is: Mike Albo, “Dressed to Impress, with a Southern Drawl,” New York Times, February 18, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/fashion/19CRITIC.html.
She sees her: Kristi York Wooten, “You Can Make It There,” Bitter Southerner, n.d., https://bittersoutherner.com/alabama-chanin.
“My mother”: Debbie Elliott, “Reviving a Southern Industry, From Cotton Field to Clothing Rack,” NPR Morning Edition, October 10, 2014, https://www.npr.org/2014/10/10/354934991/reviving-a-southern-industry-from-cotton-field-to-clothing-rack.
“It was artistic”: Julie Gilhart, interview with the author, by phone, July 29, 2018.
“the nurturing benefits”: Wooten, “You Can Make It There.”
Born in 1964: Billy Reid, interview with the author, Florence, Alabama, August 27, 2016.
His Spring-Summer 2002: Rachel Dodes, “Designer Fashions a Comeback Without the Usual Pattern,” Wall Street Journal, February 9, 2006.
“Being in Florence”: K.P. McNeill, interview with the author, Florence, Alabama, August 28, 2016. All McNeill quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
With his vertically run: Dodes, “Designer Fashions a Comeback Without the Usual Pattern.”
Three years after: Jean E. Palmieri, “Billy Reid Reflects on 20 Years in Fashion,” Women’s Wear Daily, December 28, 2017.
“We broke down”: Elliott, “Reviving a Southern Industry.”
K.P. McNeill was driving: Elliott, “Reviving a Southern Industry.”
They reached out: Rinne Allen, “Billy Reid and Alabama Chanin’s Homegrown Cotton,” T: The New York Times Style Magazine, May 9, 2014, https://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/09/05/billy-reid-and-alabama-chanin-sustainable-cotton-project/.
“So many people”: Elliott, “Reviving a Southern Industry.”
The mill owner: Allen, “Billy Reid and Alabama Chanin’s Homegrown Cotton.”
Locklear—known as: Steven Kurutz, “The Sock Queen of Alabama,” New York Times, March 29, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/31/fashion/sock-business-alabama.html.
In 2008, at the age: Gina Locklear, interview with the author, by phone, September 20, 2018. All Locklear quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
about seven hundred: Elliott, “Reviving a Southern Industry.”
In 2017, the Nashville Fashion: Lizzy Alfs, “Report: Nashville Fashion Industry Contributes Billions to Economy,” Tennessean, January 25, 2017, https://eu.tennessean.com/story/money/2017/01/25/report-nashville-fashion-industry-contributes-billions-economy/97011064/.
More than half: Lauren Sherman, “Nashville: America’s Next Fashion Capital?” Business of Fashion, April 4, 2017, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/market-gps/nashville-americas-next-fashion-capital.
had been established: Alfs, “Report: Nashville Fashion Industry Contributes Billions to Economy.”
A self-taught sewer: Elizabeth Pape, interview with the author, Nashville, August 25, 2016. All Pape quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
At Omega Apparel: Nichols, interview with the author, Nashville.
In early 2020: David Perry, interview with the author, by phone, September 27, 2018.
CHAPTER FIVE: RIGHTSHORING
a mill town: Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
“we built a modern”: Tracy Hawkins, interview with the author, Dukinfield, UK, November 23, 2016. All Hawkins quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
the first large-scale: Paul Byrne, “Cotton to Be Spun in UK Mill for the First Time in 30 Years,” Mirror, December 2, 2015, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/cotton-spun-uk-mill-first-6944260.
With a private investment: “King Cotton Comes Home,” Innovation Textiles, December 3, 2015, https://www.innovationintextiles.com/king-cotton-comes-home-manchester-company-invests-58m-to-bring-cotton-spinning-back-to-britain/.
McCormack and Shaughnessy: Shelina Begum, “Cotton Spinning Returns to Greater Manchester Thanks to £5.8m Investment,” Manchester Evening News, December 5, 2015, https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/business/business-news/cotton-spinning-returns-greater-manchester-10532083.
English Fine Cottons produced: Ashley Armstrong, “Riding High,” Sunday Telegraph, December 10, 2017.
In the United States: Patrick Van den Bossche et al., “The Truth About Reshoring,” A.T. Kearney, 2014.
the second-fastest-growing: Kate Abnett, “Does Reshoring Fashion Manufacturing Make Sense?” Business of Fashion, March 9, 2016, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/can-fashion-manufacturing-come-home.
an impressive vault: Rebecca Mead, “The Garmento King,” New Yorker, September 23, 2013, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/23/the-garmento-king.
In Great Britain: Abnett, “Does Reshoring Fashion Manufacturing Make Sense?”
and another 20,000: Karen Kay, “Luxury Brands Feel Demand for Return of UK’s Cotton and Knitwear Mills,” Guardian, October 30, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2016/oct/30/fashion-luxury-brands-return-of-uk-cotton-mills.
Paul Donovan: Natasha Turak, “We May Have Hit ‘Peak Trade’ Even Without Trump’s Tariffs, Economist Says,” CNBC, March 7, 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/07/we-may-have-hit-peak-trade-even-without-trumps-tariffs-ubs.html.
Rightshoring has so: Katie Weisman, “Made in the USA: Dead or Alive?” Business of Fashion, November 13, 2017, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/made-in-the-usa-dead-or-alive.
In South Carolina: Stephanie Clifford, “U.S. Textile Plants Return, With Floors Largely Empty of People,” New York Times, September 12, 2013.
In 2015, the Zhejiang-based: “Keer Group to Invest $218 Million to Create 501 Jobs in Lancaster Country,” South Carolina Department of Commerce, December 16, 2013, https://www.sccommerce.com/news/keer-group-invest-218-million-create-501-jobs-lancaster-county.
there are “incentives”: Jenni Avins, “Chinese Textile Manufacturers Found a Cheap New Place for Outsourcing: The US,” Quartz, August 4, 2015, https://qz.com/470358/chinese-textile-manufacturers-found-a-cheap-new-place-for-outsourcing-the-us/.
As Lancaster County: Hiroko Tabuchi, “Chinese Textile Mills Are Now Hiring in Places Where Cotton Was King,” New York Times, August 2, 2015, https://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/03/business/chinese-textile-mills-are-now-hiring-in-places-where-cotton-was-king.html.
Designer Nanette Lepore: Stephanie Clifford, “That ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ Premium,” Women’s Wear Daily, November 30, 2013.
what she calls: Maria Cornejo, interview with the author, New York, June 28, 2017. All Cornejo quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
On her first day: Maura Egan, “Maria Cornejo, the Independent,” New York Times, February 8, 2014, https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/08/t-magazine/maria-cornejo-style.html.
The borough already: Vanessa Friedman, “Brooklyn’s Wearable Revolution,” New York Times, April 30, 2016.
During his State: Arthur Friedman, “An Apparel Campus Grow in Brooklyn,” Women’s Wear Daily, February 14, 2017.
New York City had 1,568: Winnie Hu, “New York Tries to Revive Garment Industry, Outside the Garment District,” New York Times, February 7, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/07/nyregion/new-york-garment-industry-brooklyn.html.
designer Yeohlee Teng: Jean E. Palmieri, “Fashion Insiders Spar Over N.Y.’s Garment District Location,” Women’s Wear Daily, April 24, 2017.
Joe Ferrara: Valeriya Safronova, “A Debate Over the Home of New York’s Fashion Industry,” New York Times, April 25, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/25/fashion/de-blasio-garment-district-sunset-park.html.
Like costume: Safronova, “A Debate Over the Home of New York’s Fashion Industry.”
Rosen dissents: Andrew Rosen, interview with the author, New York, June 22, 2017. All Rosen quotes come from this interview or phone calls, unless otherwise indicated.
she says she wants: Dhani Mau, “A Look Inside Reformation’s Bright, Shiny, Sustainable Los Angeles Factory,” Fashionista, April 25, 2017, https://fashionista.com/2017/04/reformation-factory.
Fans include: John Koblin, “Reformation, an Eco Label the Cool Girls Pick,” New York Times, December 17, 2014.
and Meghan Markle: “Meghan Markle Just Wore a Dress with a Thigh-High Slit and Looked Incredible,” Cosmopolitan.com, October 22, 2018, https://www.cosmopolitan.com/entertainment/a24056950/meghan-markle-thigh-high-slit-dress/.
“I design for”: Kristen Bateman, “How Reformation Because the Ultimate Cool Girl Brand for Sustainable Clothes,” Allure, February 15, 2017, https://www.allure.com/story/reformation-yael-aflalo-sustainable-fashion-brand.
As early as 2004: Jenny Strasburg, “Made in the U.S.A.,” San Francisco Chronicle, July 4, 2004, https://www.sfgate.com/business/article/MADE-IN-THE-U-S-2709678.php.
In 1999, at twenty-one: Koblin, “Reformation, an Eco Label the Cool Girls Pick.”
“I want altruism”: Koblin, “Reformation, an Eco Label the Cool Girls Pick.”
She took over: Danielle Directo-Meston, “Inside Reformation’s Sustainable Sewing Factory and HQ in Boyle Heights,” Racked, March 19, 2015, https://la.racked.com/2015/3/19/8227687/reformation-downtown-los-angeles-studio.
She bought a Tesla: Kathleen Chaykowski, “This Model Turned CEO Is Betting ‘Bricks and Clicks’ Can Create a Green Fast-Fashion Empire,” Forbes, October 24, 2017.
(Few have.): Yael Aflalo, interview with the author, by phone, October 12, 2018. All Aflalo quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
“We make killer”: Emily Holt, “Meet the Woman Behind Cool Ethical Label Reformation,” Vogue, November 4, 2015, https://www.vogue.com/article/reformation-eco-fashion-ethical-label.
she hired Zara’s trend: Koblin, “Reformation, an Eco Label the Cool Girls Pick.”
Board member Ken Fox: Chaykowski, “This Model Turned CEO.”
“The prevailing sustainable”: Holt, “Meet the Woman.”
Aflalo adopted: Chaykowski, “This Model Turned CEO.”
She told us: Kathleen Talbot, interview with the author, Los Angeles, October 13, 2017.
Aflalo believed: Chaykowski, “This Model Turned CEO.”
CHAPTER SIX: MY BLUE HEAVEN
“We were out”: Sarah Bellos, interview with the author, Goodlettsville, TN, August 23, 2016. All Bellos quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
“Crazy,” she remarked: Amy Feldman, “Stony Creek Colors Is Convincing Tobacco Farmers to Grow Indigo, Building a Business on Natural Dyes,” Forbes, August 27, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestreptalks/2017/08/27/stony-creek-colors-is-convincing-tobacco-farmers-to-grow-indigo-building-a-business-on-natural-dyes/.
The EPA classifies aniline: Jasmin Malik Chua, “Axing Aniline in Denim Dyes? Not So Fast,” Sourcing Journal, December 3, 2018, https://sourcingjournal.com/denim/denim-mills/axing-aniline-129031/.
Recent reports: Melody M. Bomgardner, “These New Textile Dyeing Methods Could Make Fashion More Sustainable,” Chemical & Engineering News, July 15, 2018, https://cen.acs.org/business/consumer-products/new-textile-dyeing-methods-make/96/i29.
Tobacco is finicky: Emily Siner, “Why Tobacco Farmers in Robertson County Are Switching to Indigo,” Nashville Public Radio, August 22, 2016, https://www.nashvillepublicradio.org/post/why-tobacco-farmers-robertson-county-are-switching-indigo#stream/0.
Susceptible to disease: Feldman, “Stony Creek Colors Is Convincing Tobacco Farmers.”
Bellos had no trouble: Feldman, “Stony Creek Colors Is Convincing Tobacco Farmers.”
“Our job is to”: Young Lee, “David Hieatt, Founder of Hiut Denim,” Heddels, November 9, 2013, https://www.heddels.com/2013/11/david-hieatt-founder-hiut-denim-exclusive-interview/.
In 1965, Kotaro: Paul Travi, “Big John—The History of the First Japanese Made Jeans,” Heddels, March 26, 2013, https://www.heddels.com/2013/03/big-john-the-history-of-the-first-japanese-made-jeans/.
Soon, 70 percent of all: Emma McClendon, Denim: Fashion’s Frontier (New York: Fashion Institute of Technology, 2016), 31.
In the 1980s, Japanese “pickers” : McClendon, Denim, 30.
In Osaka: “The History of the Osaka 5,” Heddels, March 17, 2014.
One company: McClendon, Denim, 31.
On a misty: Tatsushi Tabuchi, interview with the author, Kojima, Japan, April 5, 2018.
“Jeanologia was born”: Enrique Silla, interview with the author, Valencia, Spain, December 19, 2016. All Silla quotes come from this interview.
about half of what: Malcom Moor, “The End of China’s Cheap Denim Dream,” Telegraph, February 26, 2011, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8349425/The-end-of-Chinas-cheap-denim-dream.html.
“Keynesian economics”: Paul Dillinger, interview with the author, San Francisco, October 13, 2017. All Dillinger quotes come from this interview, or phone calls, unless otherwise indicated.
A vegan who: “Chip Bergh: ‘There Are No Real Failures—Only Opportunities to Learn,” Thrive Global, January 26, 2017, https://medium.com/thrive-global/chip-bergh-there-are-no-real-failures-only-opportunities-to-learn-e8972dd96b73.
runs marathons: Adam Bryant, “Chip Bergh on Setting a High Bar and Holding People Accountable,” New York Times, June 9, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/business/chip-bergh-on-setting-a-high-bar-and-holding-people-accountable.html.
Bergh promised: Russell Hotten, “How Jeans Giant Levi Strauss Got Its Mojo Back,” BBC News, September 25, 2017, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-40945709.
He replaced ten: Tessa Love, “Levi’s CEO Chip Bergh Leads Company Rebound in Part by Winning Battle for Executive Talent,” San Francisco Business Times, November 11, 2016, https://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/news/2016/11/10/most-admired-chip-bergh-levi-strauss-rebound.html.
Curleigh figured: James Curleigh, speech, VAMFF Business Seminar, Melbourne, Australia, March 17, 2015.
At the time, Levi’s: Tim Higgins, “Distressed Denim: Levi’s Tries to Adapt to the Yoga Pants Era,” Bloomberg Businessweek, July 23, 2015.
whenever the design: Caroline Fairchild, “Does Levi Strauss Still Fit America?” Fortune, October 6, 2014, http://fortune.com/2014/09/18/levi-strauss-chip-bergh/.
“We probably . . .”: Higgins, “Distressed Denim.”
In 2012, he decided: Bart Sights, interview with the author, San Francisco, October 13, 2017. All Sights quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
A Dubliner: Largetail, “Interview: Paul O’Neill of Levi’s Vintage Clothing,” Coolhunting, February 17, 2015, https://coolhunting.com/style/interview-paul-oneill-levis-vintage-clothing/.
Four months later: Mark Lane, “Levi Strauss Replaces People with Lasers,” Apparel Insider, March 1, 2018, https://apparelinsider.com/levi-strauss-replaces-people-lasers/.
In 2003, Cone Mills: David Shuck, “Who Killed the Cone Mills White Oak Plant?” Heddels, February 1, 2018, https://www.heddels.com/2018/02/killed-cone-mills-white-oak-plant/.
In October 2016: Shuck, “Who Killed the Cone Mills White Oak Plant?”
laying off the last: Alex Williams, “No Room for America Left in Those Jeans,” New York Times, November 10, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/10/style/goodbye-american-selvage-jeans.html.
A couple of weeks: Sabrina Simms, “Sunday Focus: What Are the Next Steps for Vidalia Denim?” Natchez Democrat, July 22, 2018, https://www.natchezdemocrat.com/2018/07/22/sunday-focus-what-are-the-next-steps-for-vidalia-denim/.
It would source sustainable: Dan Feibus, interview with the author, by phone, October 11, 2018. All Feibus quotes come from this interview.
Wrangler was one: “Vidalia Denim to Supply Sustainably-Made Denim Fabrics from State-of-Art Facility in Louisiana,” Market Insider, July 24, 2018, https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/vidalia-denim-to-supply-sustainably-made-denim-fabrics-from-state-of-art-facility-in-louisiana-1027394624.
CHAPTER SEVEN: WE CAN WORK IT OUT
A lifelong vegetarian: Anat Keinan and Sandrine Crener, “Stella McCartney,” Harvard Business School, November 22, 2016, 19.
McCartney believes: Stella McCartney, interview with the author, London, March 16, 2017. All McCartney quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
Millennial and: Elizabeth Doupnik, “Ath-Leisure-Clad, Sustainably Aware Consumers Catapult Wool Market,” Women’s Wear Daily, March 27, 2017, https://wwd.com/fashion-news/textiles/spotlight-woolmark-10851043/.
a Nielsen global: “Green Generation: Millennials Say Sustainability Is a Shopping Priority,” Nielsen Global Survey of Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability, May 11, 2015, https://www.nielsen.com/eu/en/insights/news/2015/green-generation-millennials-say-sustainability-is-a-shopping-priority.html.
“Millennials want”: Elisa Neimtzow, interview with the author, by Skype, October 12, 2015.
McCartney and her: David Owen, “Going Solo,” New Yorker, September 17, 2001, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/09/17/going-solo.
McCartney was a self-described: Owen, “Going Solo,” 132.
“My mum wore”: “She Hopes You Will Enjoy the Show,” Newsweek, April 27, 1997.
“Stella Steel”: Owen, 130.
Lagerfeld snipped: Owen, “Going Solo,” 130.
With her first show: Suzy Menkes, “Glitter-Gulch from Givenchy as McQueen Goes Wild West: A Stellar Start for Chloe’s Light-Hearted Little Nothings,” International Herald Tribune, October 16, 1997, https://www.nytimes.com/1997/10/16/news/glittergulch-from-givenchy-as-mcqueen-goes-wild-west-a-stellar-start.html.
“What Stella did”: Owen, “Going Solo,” 130.
“Livestock production”: Keinan and Crener, “Stella McCartney,” 5.
with more than: Jess Cartner-Morley, “Stella McCartney: ‘Fashion People Are Pretty Heartless,’” Guardian, October 5, 2009, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2009/oct/05/stella-mccartney-fashion-heartless.
Conventional leather tanning: Keinan and Crener, “Stella McCartney,” 5.
90 percent: Carry Hq, “Chrome vs Vegetable Tanned Leather,” Carryology, August 28, 2015, https://www.carryology.com/insights/chrome-vs-vegetable-tanned-leather/.
she was swiftly: Owen, “Going Solo,” 132.
one published report: Imran Amed, “Stella McCartney: A Success Without Making Fashion Victims Out of Animals,” Evening Standard, April 9, 2015, https://www.standard.co.uk/business/markets/stella-mccartney-a-success-without-making-fashion-victims-out-of-animals-10164406.html.
McCartney’s sustainability and ethical: Claire Bergkamp, interview with the author, London, January 20, 2017. All Bergkamp quotes come from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
The EP&L “allows”: Keinan and Crener, “Stella McCartney,” 16.
In 2014, McCartney: Betsy Andrews, “What Is ‘Rainforest-Free’ Clothing, and Why Should You Care?” Racked, March 16, 2017, https://www.racked.com/2017/3/16/14938354/fashion-sustainability-rainforest-free-clothing.
For centuries, cashmere: Una Jones, interview with the author, by phone, April 26, 2017.
If fashion’s demand: Jones interview.
in 2016, Stella: “Stella McCartney’s Eco-Conscious Solution to Cashmere,” Modem, August 3, 2016, http://www.modemonline.com/modem-mag/article/3793-united-kingdom—london-stella-mccartneys-eco-conscious-solution-to-cashmere.
Swiss entrepreneur: Nina Marenzi, interview with the author, London, March 14, 2017. All Marenzi quotes come from this interview.
There was a white: Luisa Zargani, “Salvatore Ferragamo Launches Capsule Collection Made with Orange Fiber,” Women’s Wear Daily, April 17, 2017, http://wwd.com/fashion-news/designer-luxury/exclusive-salvatore-ferragamo-launches-capsule-collection-made-orange-fiber-10868843/.
economist Robert Reich: Robert Reich, “Corporations Won’t Lead the Way on Solving Global Warming,” American Prospect, October 18, 2007, https://prospect.org/article/corporations-wont-lead-way-solving-global-warming-0.
at Inditex: Imran Amed and Kate Abnett, “Inditex: Agile Fashion Force,” Business of Fashion, March 30, 2015, https://www.businessoffashion.com/community/voices/discussions/can-fashion-industry-become-sustainable/inditex-agile-fashion-force.
many belong to: Jason Kibbey, interview with the author, by phone, November 20, 2017.
H&M has pledged: Nathalie Remy, Eveline Speelman, and Steven Swartz, “Style That’s Sustainable: A New Fast-Fashion Formula,” McKinsey & Company, October 2016.
“future-proof our business”: Anna Gedda, interview with the author, Copenhagen, May 11, 2017.
While living in Shanghai: Teresa Novellino, “Modern Meadow Founder Andras Forgacs Makes Leather in a Brooklyn Lab,” New York Business Journal, October 3, 2016, https://www.bizjournals.com/newyork/news/2016/10/03/modern-meadow-andras-forgacs-reinventor-upstart100.html.
Already, Forgacs: Eillie Anzilotti, “How Modern Meadow Is Fabricating the Animal-Free Leather of the Future,” Fast Company, October 11, 2017, https://www.fastcompany.com/40475098/how-modern-meadow-is-fabricating-the-animal-free-leather-of-the-future.
Suzanne Lee, a savvy: Suzanne Lee, interview with the author, New York, June 21, 2017. All Lee quotes come from this interview unless otherwise indicated.
A year later: Anzilotti, “How Modern Meadow Is Fabricating the Animal-Free Leather of the Future.”
Leather is a $100-billion: Novellino, “Modern Meadow Founder Andras Forgacs Makes Leather in a Brooklyn Lab.”
And consumer demand: “Global Leather Goods Market 2017-2021,” Technavio, September 2017, https://www.technavio.com/report/global-leather-goods-market?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI9YHxgaqc3gIV1YXVCh1bMA29EAAYASAAEgJELfD_BwE.
the livestock industry: Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang, “Livestock and Climate Change,” World Watch, November/December 2009, http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294.
Since my interview: Jill Meisner, by email, February 26, 2019.
With the help: Vikram Alexei Kansara, “With Lab-Grown Leather, Modern Meadow Is Engineering a Fashion Revolution,” Business of Fashion, September 26, 2017, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/fashion-tech/bof-exclusive-with-lab-grown-leather-modern-meadow-is-bio-engineering-a-fashion-revolution.
they hired a trio: Kansara, “With Lab-Grown Leather.”
Spiders extrude: Amy Feldman, “Clothes from a Petri Dish: $700 Million Bolt Threads May Have Cracked the Code on Spider Silk,” Forbes, April 15, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2018/08/14/clothes-from-a-petri-dish-700-million-bolt-threads-may-have-cracked-the-code-on-spider-silk/#4c41535ebda1.
The science behind: Jamie Bainbridge, interview with the author, Emeryville, CA, October 13, 2017. All Bainbridge quotes are from this interview, phone calls, or emails, unless otherwise indicated.
By mid-2018, Bolt: Katya Foreman, “This $400 Tote Is Made of Mushrooms, Not Leather,” Women’s Wear Daily, September 8, 2018, https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-features/exclusive-bolt-threads-first-commercialized-mylo-bag-1202783029/.
CHAPTER EIGHT: AROUND AND AROUND WE GO
“tons of clothing”: Ellen MacArthur and Julie Wainwright, “The New Textiles Economy,” Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Copenhagen, May 16, 2018.
To tack in the right direction: MacArthur and Wainwright, “The New Textiles Economy.”
she always visited: In 2000, the NLC charged that Target sourced from sweatshops in Nicaragua; the company claimed its inspectors saw no abuses, and it has been vigilant in this regard ever since. Carrie Antifinger, “Nicaragua: US Retailers Contract with Sweatshops,” Associated Press, August 22, 2000, https://corpwatch.org/article/nicaragua-us-retailers-contract-sweatshops.
“You could eat”: Stacy Flynn, interview with the author, Villepinte, France September 18, 2018. All Flynn quotes come from this interview, or follow-up emails, unless otherwise indicated.
“find solutions that”: Stacy Flynn, speech, Fast Company’s World Changing Idea Awards, Fast Company, May 7, 2018.
in New York City alone: Elizabeth Cline, “Where Does Discarded Clothing Go?” Atlantic, July 18, 2014, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/07/where-does-discarded-clothing-go/374613/.
“Wouldn’t it be”: Cyndi Rhoades, interview with the author, Eurostar, June 15, 2017. All Rhoades quotes are from this interview or follow-up interviews.
In 2000, he saw Bill: Craig Cohon, interview with the author, Eurostar, June 15, 2017. All Cohon quotes are from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
“It was the time”: “In Conversation with Craig Cohon, Live,” Tank, September 26, 2018, https://tankmagazine.com/tank/2018/09/craig-cohon/.
“I felt he was”: Mark Leonard, “The Coca-Cola Man Who Had a Vision,” New Statesman, March 11, 2002, https://www.newstatesman.com/node/194377.
partnered with BP: “In Conversation with Craig Cohon, Live.”
In 2016, that equaled: Rob Walker, “Fashion in New Bid to Be Truly Sustainable,” Guardian, April 9, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/apr/08/fashion-sustainable-clothes-wwf-finland.
Because Aquafil: Giulio Bonazzi, interview with the author, by phone, November 16, 2018. All Bonazzi quotes come from this interview, unless otherwise indicated.
After four years: William McDonough, Bert Wouters, and Giulio Bonazzi, “Business Models for a Closed-Loop Fashion System,” Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Copenhagen, May 15, 2018.
“You give me”: McDonough, Wouters, and Bonazzi, “Business Models for a Closed-Loop Fashion System.”
“The single best”: Rose Marcario, “Repair Is a Radical Act,” Patagonia, November 15, 2015, https://www.patagonia.com/worn-wear.html.
Three-fourths of these: Sharon Edelson, “Experience Matters: A New Eileen Fisher Retail Concept Grows in Brooklyn,” Women’s Wear Daily, August 21, 2018.
Leftovers are fed: Edelson, “Experience Matters.”
“We must share”: Eileen Fisher, “Innovation with the Next Generation,” Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Copenhagen, May 11, 2017.
Levi’s Chip Bergh: Roisin O’Connor, “Levi’s CEO Explains Why You Should Never Wash Your Jeans,” Independent, February 18, 2016, https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/fashion/levis-ceo-explains-why-you-should-never-wash-your-jeans-a6881031.html.
Procter & Gamble’s: McDonough, Wouters, and Bonazzi, “Business Models for a Closed-Loop Fashion System.”
“Made with wind”: William McDonough, “Cradle to Cradle, the Circular Economy and the Five Goods,” Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Copenhagen, May 11, 2017.
“If you want”: Katrin Ley, interview with the author, Amsterdam, November 12, 2018.
CHAPTER NINE: RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE
Ray Kurzweil: Elizabeth Paton, “Fashion’s Future, Printed to Order,” New York Times, December 5, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/business/fashions-future-printed-to-order.html.
Andrew Bolton, the head curator: Andrew Bolton, Manus x Machina: Fashion in an Age of Technology (New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2016), 19.
Three-dimensional printing: Sam Rose, “What Was the First 3D Printed Object Created,” FMSblog, April 27, 2018, https://fmsblog.azurewebsites.net/first-3d-printed-object-created/.
I met “Eeee-reece”: Iris van Herpen, interview with the author, Amsterdam, June 22, 2018. All van Herpen quotes come from this interview unless otherwise indicated.
“I’ve known about”: Michael Schmidt, interview with the author, Los Angeles, October 9, 2017. All Schmidt quotes come from this interview and follow-up phone calls.
“Actually, it didn’t”: Dita Von Teese, interview with the author, by phone, November 19, 2018.
Traditional knitwear manufacturing: Ben Alun-Jones and Kirsty Watts, interview with the author, London, March 15, 2017. All Alun-Jones and Watts quotes come from this interview or follow-up phone calls.
The “digital consumer”: Vikram Alexei Kansara, “The Sewbots Are Coming!” Business of Fashion, May 16, 2017, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/professional/the-sewbots-are-coming.
The team built: Palaniswamy Rajan, interview with the author, by phone, November 29, 2018. All Rajan quotes come from this interview.
In 2018, SoftWear partnered: Tara Donaldson, “Li & Fung Enlists Sewbot Technologies in Drive for Digital Supply Chain,” Sourcing Journal, May 8, 2018, https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/technology/li-fung-sewbot-technologies-digital-supply-chain-105527/.
You’ve got Nike’s: “The Robot Startup Using Static Electricity to Make Nike Sneakers,” Business of Fashion, August 30, 3017, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/fashion-tech/these-robots-are-using-static-electricity‑to‑make-nike-sneakers.
You’ve got Adidas’s: Kansara, “The Sewbots Are Coming!”
In 2016, the International Labour: Jae-He Chang, Gary Rynhart and Phu Huynh, “ASEAN in Transformation: The Future of Jobs at Risk of Automation,” International Labour Organization, July 1, 2016, https://www.ilo.org/actemp/publications/WCMS_579554/lang--en/index.htm.
“We’ll never do . . .”: Adele Peters, “This T-Shirt Sewing Robot Could Radically Shift the Apparel Industry,” Fast Company, August 25, 2017, https://www.fastcompany.com/40454692/this-t-shirt-sewing-robot-could-radically-shift-the-apparel-industry.
CHAPTER TEN: TO BUY OR NOT TO BUY
Moda’s return rate is: Sarah Kennedy, “Exclusive: Lauren Santo Domingo on the Quiet Success of Moda Operandi,” Observer, January 26, 2016, https://observer.com/2016/01/exclusive-lauren-santo-domingo-on-the-quiet-success-of-moda-operandi/.
“we help a woman”: Lauren Santo Domingo, interview with the author, London, November 18, 2015. All Santo Domingo quotes come from this interview unless otherwise indicated.
Because Moda’s full-price: Kennedy, “Exclusive: Lauren Santo Domingo on the Quiet Success of Moda Operandi.” (Moda refused to provide more recent figures.)
“We would sit among: Kennedy, “Exclusive: Lauren Santo Domingo on the Quiet Success of Moda Operandi.”
Bill Blass was the: Susan Orlean, “King of the Road,” New Yorker, December 20, 1993, 87-88, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1993/12/20/king-of-the-road.
Until that moment: Robert Burke, interview with the author, by phone, December 12, 2018. All Burke quotes come from this interview.
In 2017, apparel was the number: “Revenue of Leading E-Retail Categories in the United States in 2017 (in Billion U.S. Dollars),” Statista, n.d., https://www.statista.com/statistics/568830/us-e-retail-sales-by-category/.
Globally, fashion e-commerce: Arron Orendorff, “The State of the Ecommerce Fashion Industry,” Shopify, March 16, 2018, https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/ecommerce-fashion-industry.
Ninety-two percent: Antonio Achille, Nathalie Remy, and Sophie Marchessou, “The Age of Digital Darwinism,” McKinsey & Company, January 2018.
A 2017 study: Helen Edwards and Dave Edwards, “Why Shoppers Ditch Traditional Stores for Online in Their Twenties,” Quartz, November 29, 2017, https://qz.com/1139098/why-shoppers-ditch-traditional-stores-for-online-in-their-twenties/.
In 2017, the Seattle-based: Lauren Mang, “High-End Stores That Don’t Actually Sell Anything Are the Future of Retail,” Quartz, November 24, 2017, https://qz.com/1135230/high-end-stores-that-dont-actually-sell-anything-are-the-future-of-retail/.
The socioeconomic theater: Émile Zola, The Ladies’ Paradise (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), ix.
In 2017 alone: Lauren Sherman, “How to Save the Mall,” Business of Fashion, October 2, 2017, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/intelligence/how-to-save-the-mall.
In early 2019, the struggling: Michael J. de la Merced and Michael Corkery, “Lord & Taylor Building, Icon of New York Retail, to Become WeWork Headquarters,” New York Times, October 24, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/24/business/lord-taylor-wework.html. (WeWork has since rebranded to The We Company).
the first three: David Moin, “WeWork Sets Vision for Lord & Taylor Flagship,” Women’s Wear Daily, October 30, 2018, https://wwd.com/business-news/retail/wework-sets-vision-for-lord-taylor-flagship-1202895358/.
Lord & Taylor’s parent: De la Merced and Corkery, “Lord & Taylor Building, Icon of New York Retail, to Become WeWork Headquarters.”
In 2007, Amazon: Anna Nicolaou, “Now Amazon Is Disrupting Fashion Retail, Too,” Financial Times, January 26, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/795935ac-0205-11e8-9650-9c0ad2d7c5b5.
By the end of 2017: Nicolaou, “Now Amazon Is Disrupting Fashion Retail, Too.”
with projected sales: Daphne Howland, “Amazon Poised to Reign Over Apparel by Years’ End,” Retail Dive, September 12, 2018, https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-poised-to-reign-over-apparel-by-years-end/532151/.
Analysts predict: Nicolaou, “Now Amazon Is Disrupting Fashion Retail, Too.”
possess 16 percent: Achille, Remy, and Marchessou, “The Age of Digital Darwinism.”
Amazon introduced: Alyssa Pagano, “I Let Amazon’s New Echo Look Choose My Clothes for a Week—Here’s How It Went,” Business Insider, June 6, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.fr/us/amazon-echo-look-alexa-style-assistant-review-2018-5.
Amazon also began: Lauren Thomas, “Amazon’s 100 Million Prime Members Will Help It Become the No. 1 Apparel Retailer in the U.S.,” CNBC.com, April 19, 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/19/amazon-to-be-the-no-1-apparel-retailer-in-the-us-morgan-stanley.html.
“They’re going”: Imran Amed, “Chip Bergh on Steering Levi’s Through the Uncertainties of 2017,” Business of Fashion, January 8, 2018, https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/ceo-talk/chip-bergh-on-steering-levis-through-the-uncertainties-of-2017.
To that end, in 2017: Jason Del Rey, “Amazon Won a Patent for an On-Demand Clothing Manufacturing Warehouse,” Recode, April 18, 2017, https://www.recode.net/2017/4/18/15338984/amazon-on-demand-clothing-apparel-manufacturing-patent-warehouse-3d.
Fabric would be: Marc Bain, “Amazon Has Patented an Automated On-Demand Clothing Factory,” Quartz, April 19, 2017, https://qz.com/963381/amazon-amzn-has-patented-an-automated-on-demand-clothing-factory/.
“Imagine if Amazon”: Nicolaou, “Now Amazon Is Disrupting Fashion Retail, Too.”
Pop-ups were conjured: Amanda Fortini, “The Anti-Concept Concept Store,” New York Times Magazine, December 12, 2004, https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/magazine/anticoncept-concept-store-the.html.
Adidas popped: Michael Reilly, “Three-D Knitting Brings Tech to Your Sweaters for a Price,” Technology Review, April 6, 2017, https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604102/3-d-knitting-brings-tech-to-your-sweaters-for-a-price/.
by late 2018, #ootd: Sheila Marikar, “The Transformational Bliss of Borrowing Your Office Clothes,” New York Times, October 12, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/12/business/rent-the-runway-office-clothes.html.
what the Amazon UK: Sarah Butler, “Amazon Opens Pop Up Fashion Shop in Central London,” Guardian, October 23, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/oct/23/amazon-opens-pop-up-fashion-shop-in-central-london.
“Every retailer needs”: Samantha Conti, “How Much Faster Can Fashion Get?” Women’s Wear Daily, April 5, 2017, https://wwd.com/business-news/retail/how-much-faster-fashion-get-10857985/.
Facebook/Instagram global head: Morin Oluwole, interview with the author, Paris, December 20, 2018.
“When I first presented”: Matthew Bell, “The Selfridges Scion Making a Splash,” Independent, May 14, 2011, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/the-selfridges-scion-making-a-splash-2284163.html.
A stylish brunette: Daniella Vega, interview with the author, London, June 13, 2017. All Vega quotes come from this interview.
The investment and attentiveness: Elias Jahshan, “Selfridges Reclaims Best Department Store Title,” Retail Gazette, May 25, 2018, https://www.retailgazette.co.uk/blog/2018/05/selfridges-reclaims-best-department-store-world-title/.
In 2018, the company completed: “Selfridges Bags Another Record Year Despite Gloomy Retail Outlook,” Irish News, October 1, 2018, http://www.irishnews.com/business/2018/10/01/news/selfridges-bags-another-record-year-despite-gloomy-retail-outlook-1447034/.
Wainwright’s teams: Ellen MacArthur and Julie Wainwright, “The New Textiles Economy,” Copenhagen Fashion Summit, Copenhagen, May 16, 2018.
Some brands are still: Jessica Binns, “Resale, Rentals and Subscriptions Have Tommy Hilfiger, Michael Kors Spooked,” Sourcing Journal, March 1, 2019, https://sourcingjournal.com/topics/retail/resale-rentals-subscriptions-tommy-hilfiger-michael-kors-edited-141430/.
In November 2018: “Chanel Is Suing the RealReal for Allegedly Selling Counterfeit Bags,” Fashion Law, November 15, 2018, http://www.thefashionlaw.com/home/chanel-is-suing-the-realreal-for-allegedly-selling-counterfeit-bags.
It won’t be stopped: MacArthur and Wainwright, “The New Textiles Economy.”
It wasn’t easy: Marikar, “The Transformational Bliss of Borrowing Your Office Clothes.”
According to Hyman: Alexendra Schwartz, “Rent the Runway Wants to Lend You Your Look,” New Yorker, October 22, 2018.
For $159 a month: Anna Nicolaou and Mark Vandervelde, “Retailers Respond to Rise in Renting Clothes and Goods,” Financial Times, December 17, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/ca2e1860-e425-11e7-8b99-0191e45377ec.
“The smell has”: Schwartz, “Rent the Runway Wants to Lend You Your Look.”
Rent the Runway: Patricia Marx, “The Borrowers,” New Yorker, January 31, 2011.
also accumulates a wealth: Schwartz, “Rent the Runway Wants to Lend You Your Look.”
“It’s an amazing”: Marikar, “The Transformational Bliss of Borrowing Your Office Clothes.”
Brochard and Brizay met: Emmanuelle Brizay, interview with the author, Paris, November 6, 2018. All Brizay quotes come from this interview unless otherwise indicated.
“It’s still hush-hush”: Sara Dalloul, interview with the author, Paris, October 26, 2017. All Dalloul quotes come from this interview.
Panoply stylist Bettina: Bettina Hetoubanabo, interview with the author, Paris, October 26, 2018.
In 2016, Panoply raised: Harriet Agnew, “Rent-à-Porter—Would You Hire Your Wardrobe?” Financial Times, September 28, 2018, https://www.ft.com/content/3211b24c-c171-11e8-95b1-d36dfef1b89a.
To put it in perspective: Corinne Ruff, “30 Minutes with Rent the Runway’s CEO,” Retail Dive, May 7, 2018.
In the spring of 2018: John Mowbray, “France Proposes Law to Tackle Unsold Clothing Problem,” Ecotextile News, April 25, 2018, https://www.ecotextile.com/2018042523440/fashion-retail-news/france-proposes-law-to-tackle-unsold-clothing-problem.html.