Dave Writes a Fashion Post!

The moral of Elizabeth Cline's elegantly written expose Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion is grim: "We own more clothes than we can wear, the quality and craftsmanship of our wardrobes is at an all-time low, and the U.S. manufacturing base can't compete on wages with the developing world, costing countless domestic jobs," but Cline does find hope in two places: the first is when she learns the joy of sewing . . . she finds a subculture of folks who won't stand for cheap "fast-fashion" clothes and won't pay inordinate designer prices, so they either make their own clothes or modify the ones they have, and while I don't think I'm going to go out and buy a sewing machine, this book has made me look at where my clothes were made and examine the stitching and material a little more closely . . . and the second place she sees hope is in fair trade companies that are making quality clothes in America with organic materials for a reasonable price (although a hell of a lot more expensieve than H & M or Forever 21) and I highly recommend this book if you are like me and know next to nothing about clothes and fashion, and it might even be interesting to someone who is a fashionista because of Freakonomics-style global take on the topic.