Unmasking Fashion

Forget Vogue, Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion is the real Fashion Bible.

They say honesty is the best policy, but behind the glitz and glamour of the fashion world lies deep and disturbing secrets. Shockingly truthful and brutally honest, Tansy Hoskins exposes the superficial industry for what it really is. 

Each year 40,000 fingers are found severed from work related incidents in China’s Pearl Delta River. And that’s only the ones that are found. Just let that sink in.

Published in 2014, it delves into the nitty-gritty. The book reveals the harsh realities of the $3 trillion dollar global industry. Essentially, the book is about how the lucrative fashion industry pulls the wool over your eyes and “stitches up” those at the bottom of the supply chain.

Having previously written about many ethical based issues for i-D, the Guardian, The Independent, Aljazeera and Business of Fashion to name a few, it’s safe to assume that freelance journalist Hoskins is an expert in the field. Currently writing her second book, her work has taken her all over the world, most recently to Topshop’s warehouses in Solihull.

In 202 pages, Hoskins unveils how “fashion is a world devoid of variety”, where anyone or anything “who does not fit within its slim visual confines is rendered all but invisible” —  in instances of body size, race, class, and gender stereotypes. She dissects the economics, starting from raw materials to the final product within the media and our wardrobes.

It echoes what Karl Marx wrote about 169 years ago, that inequality and exploitation are right out of the past, and we, as the consumers, are continually turning a blind eye to greedy designers and impatient corporations.

Jam packed with brute statistics, Stitched Up is a complete eye opener. It will make you question whether the shirt on your back began its footprints by an Indian cotton farmer who killed himself because he was unable to pay his farm equipment loan back, or whether the Haitian family ate dinner that night. 

Fashion exists to make you buy clothes that are in trend one week, and destined for the charity shop the following. Unlike fashion’s rapidly changing nature, this book will however exist to be relevant until there is a reform on fashion. If you purchase garments this investigative read is a must have for you.

Fashion is a product of corporate narcissism. It’s time to lift the mask.

* Stitched Up available on offer at Wordery