Common Read

Common Read

The Life and Death of a Garment

Take a look at your favorite pair of jeans. Maybe you bought them on Amazon or the mall; maybe the tag says “Made in Bangladesh” or “Made in Sri Lanka.” But do you know where they really came from, how many thousands of miles they crossed, or the number of hands who picked, spun, wove, dyed, packaged, shipped, and sold them to get to you?

In Unraveled, author Maxine Bédat follows the life of an American icon–a pair of jeans–to reveal what really happens to give us our clothes. 

The fashion industry operates with radical opacity, and it’s only getting worse, to disguise countless environmental and labor abuses. It epitomizes the ravages inherent in the global economy, and all in the name of ensuring that we keep buying more while thinking less about its real cost. 

Travel with Bédat in each chapter as she meets the people who work in the industry, from cotton farmers in Texas, to textile workers in Sri Lanka, to Amazon warehouse employees, to reveal the global process of what it takes to get those jeans to us and what happens to our clothes when we donate or discard them.

Unraveled challenges us to use our relationship with our jeans–and all that we wear–to reclaim our central role as citizens to refashion a society in which all people can thrive and preserve the planet for generations to come.