Following the threads of fashion
Elisabeth Wynhausen; 6/9/08
The suit was a beautiful dove-grey. The cropped jacket had a rounded collar and three-quarter sleeves. Once the trousers were taken up, the whole thing would fit like a glove. It cost a fraction less than $600. If it wasn’t the most expensive outfit I’d bought, it was close. But I wanted something special to wear to the launch of my book, Dirt Cheap: Life at the Wrong End of the Job Market, in 2005. I started wondering only the other month if the dove-grey Perri Cutten suit I had worn to launch a book about exploited low-paid workers had been made in Australia by an even lower-paid one. By then I’d decided to find out about recent additions to my wardrobe. Perhaps knowing more about the garments would help defuse the minefield of ethical dilemmas shopping has become. Now the most desultory shopping expedition can involve a debate with oneself about the ecological footprint of a cotton T-shirt, the dyes used in the treatment of leather or the working conditions in garment factories in the Pearl River Delta in China.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24299935-28737,00.html