RaveIrish Times...a thematic history of fabrics by design and culture writer Kassia St Clair who points out that the world’s earliest fabrics were made by human hand 34,000 years ago ... Probably the most disturbing chapter is the one on rayon, a synthetic fabric that has names like artificial silk, viscose, bamboo or modal. It has a sordid history of forced labour, heavy dangerous chemicals used and horrific medical hazards faced by factory workers ... The book concludes that the fabrics we choose and where we get them from still have consequences on the lives of those who produce them. Currently there are futuristic efforts to commercialise spider silk in the US, Germany and Japan, but St Clair’s account of visiting such a factory is just another one of the many vivid tales spun with such style in this utterly riveting history.
Dana Thomas
PositiveThe Irish Times (IRE)[Thomas\'] gift for scene-setting and her sharp assessments of many of the trendsetting entrepreneurs behind the scenes across the globe keeps Fashionopolis engaging throughout. Though fashion’s high visibility as an industry means that it tends to get the most attention, it is not the only polluter of the environment – other consumer items such as electronics have questions to answer about their production in low-cost countries and the waste material generated, but, as they say, sin scéal eile.
