Book: Worn: A People’s History of Clothing
Author: By Sofi Thanhauser
Published by: Pantheon. 375 pp. $30
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“Do you understand muslins, sir?” Mrs. Allen asks Mr. Tilney in Jane Austen’s “Northanger Abbey,” bewildered that a man should know or care about fabric. Mr. Tilney, it turns out, not only does but can even distinguish “true Indian muslins” from cheap imitations. Mrs. Allen’s remark might seem no more than a passing detail that establishes her fashion-obsessed character, but as always with Austen, there is more to it than meets the eye.
For centuries, the Indian subcontinent has been home to muslin (a plain weave cotton fabric). Indian muslin was valued in Rome as much as it was in China. It was also popular in Europe in the 16th-17th centuries. Even though we rarely speak of muslins or see fine Indian muslins in Jane Austen’s books, there is a reason. British colonialism, which entwined aggressive protectionism at home with violently free trade abroad made it necessary for local artisans to abandon their craft and shift to cotton cultivation. This led to a long, beautiful tradition being shattered and a rapid, precipitous decline. Indian muslin became a rare, sought-after commodity in Europe, while English muslin – cheap, industrial, protected by the state – became the norm. As Mr. Tilney observes, “Muslin always turns to some account or other.”
Sofi Thanhauser’s “Worn: A People’s History of Clothing” is a compilation of many such “accounts” of fabric, from which we learn that, if we were a bit more curious about our clothes, they would offer us rich, interesting and often surprising insights into human history. It is a deep, sustained inquiry into the origins and history of what we wear and how they have changed over the past 500 years.
The book is divided in five parts, each dedicated to a particular fabric: wool, silk, cotton and silk. Thanhauser travels around the globe to find out about the origin, production methods, local history, and the effects it has on people’s lives. She also provides the historical and anthropological contexts to show how and to what extent textile manufacturing has been at heart of great sociopolitical movements all over the globe.
Take cotton. The author begins her journey in Lubbock, Texas, where she sees a cotton harvest. This allows her to discuss – though not in any great detail – the role slavery played in the establishment and cultivation of a crop of which the United States is now the largest global exporter. She counts the environmental debt cotton incurs: “twenty thousand liters of water to make a pair of jeans, enough to grow the wheat a person would need to bake a loaf of bread each week for a year.” She describes the devastating effects that herbicides and pesticides have on the ecosystem, as well as on the people who work the fields. She then tours cotton factories in South India, once the leading supplier of the world’s cotton. This gives her the opportunity to examine the devastating consequences of British colonialism as well as modern free-market policies on an area that once had a rich and diverse textile history. She learns that intensive cotton farming is linked to droughts, water poisoning, animal death and disease, starvation, and suicide among farmers. Lastly, she turns her attention to China’s Xinjiang region and its Uyghur population, and the appropriation of its lands for the production of cotton. While China can reduce production costs and erase the religious and ethnic identity from the Uyghur population through the establishment of forced labor camps, it has also helped many Western companies make more money.
We read of similar connections between the fortunes of linen and women’s rights in the workplace; between the decline of Chinese silk and the rise, by way of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, of mass fashion; and between the introduction of synthetic fabrics and the aggressive reach of the United States in the global textile trade. We hear of ecological disasters that have been unleashed by fashion industry and the repeated displacements of diverse, handmade, and indigenous clothing by homogeneous, mass-produced garments. We learn that fast fashion – the mass manufacture of seasonal, low-cost clothes, copied from the catwalk, designed to be disposable and destined for the landfill – is responsible for a fifth of global wastewater and a 10th of carbon emissions.
The driving force behind greed and the unquenchable need for capital is always present; the victims are always the poor and marginalized. Although Thanhauser sees some hope in individual resistance and small-scale revivals local traditions and crafts, the outlook is grim. She understands that buying local wool, shopping at vintage stores or sewing one’s own clothes can go only so far and are, at any rate, affordable for just a few. This problem cannot be solved by her alone.
The subtitle of “Worn” is “A People’s History of Clothing.” Yet, as a work of history, it is less popular than personal and less about clothing itself – its types, its richness, its diversity – than about the sociopolitical dimensions of its production. People who are hoping to learn about the wonderful clothes that people used to wear in different ways and for different purposes might be disappointed by this book. It’s one thing to write about the current state of India’s textile industry. However, Thanhauser doesn’t take the opportunity to discuss the long history, evolution, and connections of the sari to gender, religion, and sexuality in India. The book’s scope is smaller than its ambition and the writing rarely reaches the level of excellence to which it aspires.
These reservations aside, I still urge people to read this book. It is powerful and persuasive as a strong argument against fast fashion’s horrors and the social and environment disasters it causes. What’s more, it might make you think twice about stepping into that high-street store again.
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Balaji Ravichandran, a New York-based writer, is Balaji Ravichandran.
