Dana Thomas (1) (1964–)

The next time my daughter complains about her university-level chemistry course I’m going to urge her to stick with it.

It seems there are tremendous employment opportunities for young chemists and biologists to figure out ways to unwind the mess that the synthetics industry has created over the past 60 years.

Today the fashion industry sells 80 billion apparel items every year, and if the global population swells to 8.5 billion by 2030, we will buy 63% more fashion, or about 102 million tons of the stuff.

About 20% of that stuff never even gets sold. Much of it ends up in landfill. And we all now know what happens to the microfibres it generates: they get into everything including the fish we eat, even into the waters of Antarctica.

Then there is the environmental impact of all those dyes and their associated deadly chemicals that get into the rivers and lakes, and the pressure of production on our poorest citizens.

Fortunately, as Dana Thomas points out, there are entrepreneurs and industry leaders investing in methods and technologies to lead us away from our worst instincts; the instinct to buy, buy, buy without due regard for the consequences.

A sidebar to this conversation is the one I regularly have with whomever will listen: eCommerce has stimulated an orgy of courier shipments, and in the fashion industry, as many as 75% of their customers will send back ill-fitting or used online purchases. Each return will result in another courier pickup and delivery.

When you factor in that many of these purchases will stimulate at least four courier trips, the trips to the customer may mean single package trips, you are adding immeasurably to the pollution in our cities and the costs of maintaining our roads.

The returns in my business are about 3.5%, far lower than industry averages, and another reason why shopping in local stores not only is good for local employment, but good for the environment as well.

In theory the mass retailers are more efficient than the neighbourhood store. But if people have little idea what they are buying those efficiencies go out the window.… (plus d'informations)

A reasonably well-written book, though some chapters read more like a collection of vignettes and less like a cohesive, continuous narrative/exposition.

A very frustrating book for a number of reasons.

Firstly, the author clearly loves fashion and the history of fashion, and luxury (or at least the concept of luxury) and it's history; I, however, find much of this... tasteless. It is consumerism and gaudiness dressed up (pun intended, I suppose) in some form of respectability. But I recognize this is, at least in part, a purely personal view (though, I stress, only in part.)

Secondly, the author seems to find the "democratization" of luxury to be... problematic. I guess I was looking for more of a strong voice/opinion; much of what she describes is not new, but her description definitely leaves one feeling... repulsed, disgusted. And yet she never quite condemns it, which I found myself increasingly frustratedly waiting for.

Thirdly, she documents a bit of "true" luxury, discussed the rise on new luxury classes, again without ever really pointing out forcefully how the uber-rich in e.g. Russia or China are tied to endemic, state-tied corruption and brutal repression. It is mentioned more in passing... e.g., toward the very in end of the book, there is a quote from a Chanel representative (I believe it was Chanel) who interjects into her comment that these people's money isn't "dirty," betraying a self-awareness on the part of the representative that that kind of thing is in fact an issue.

The discussion on counterfeiting is also frustrating. The author's examples clearly illustrate the terrible consequences of piracy, that is it is emphatically not a victimless crime. I guess I couldn't help but feel I was left waiting for the other shoe to drop (pun... or not?) The insatiable hunger that drives people want "luxury" labels is on a straight line to this behavior, if at one more remove; where was the discussion of the elephant in the room?

I guess this last is what really bothered me, throughout the book. Everywhere the consumerism, greed, shallowness that the entire "luxury" industry -old and new forms- is built on, and yet it is left largely half said. Perhaps this on purpose. But it bothered me so much.… (plus d'informations)