Sofi Thanhauser’s Worn is definitely a people’s history of clothing, and really more a history of fabric production than of clothing per se. There are so many points in clothing’s life cycle that Worn doesn’t even touch on, but it takes a good look at the production of fabrics like silk, cotton, linen, wool and synthetics: how they were first produced, how they’re produced now, their impact on the environment, and most of all their impact on the people who are involved in their manufacture, from the field to the factory.

I was hoping for something a bit more focused on clothing, rather than generally on fabric — I think there’s a meaningful distinction to be made between a history specifically about clothes and a history about fabric, and this is decidedly the latter, when I was looking for the former.

That said, I did find it interesting and enjoyable, and Thanhauser clearly put in a lot of time to ensure she heard the voices of those making fabric. There’s plenty of people writing books about clothes, and fabric is definitely a worthy part of the story. I’d have just picked a different title and subtitle.

I absolutely loved this book! It's packed with research and insights into the history of textiles and the communities who make them. A thought-provoking analysis on contemporary clothes production and the effect capitalism and mass production of garments have on women, minorities and third world countries. By reading interviews with people and communities directly affected, it is impossible for the reader not to empathise and to look into their own purchase habits to try and make a difference.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience

A very fascinating and thought provoking read about fabric and how each one is made. Very well written and researched.

I didn’t think I was going to enjoy this as much as I did. I expected it to be slightly boring but was in fact very interesting. It’s shocking to read how much we are harming human health with the process of making material for the clothing industry and how much the big company’s get away with treating their staff is awful.

What a wonderful read. Not only was this a fascinating history of fabric and our relationship with it, this book also gives vitally important (and disturbing) details about the ecological and human devastation of the rise of the manufacturing industry. The loss of many lives (Rana Plaza for example) and the gradual decline in weaving and other cloth making on a small scale, as well as the terrible damage to lakes and land, was eye opening and thought provoking. Thread and clothing are an essential part of all our lives and this book is well worth reading. Extremely interesting and recommended.

Without clothes, we’d be naked. Clothes have always been one of the triptych of basic human needs (food, clothing, housing) since time immemorial. Although I’m not the kind of person who’d pay that much attention to clothes, much has changed in our relations to the triptych of basic human needs in the past few centuries since the industrial era began. Mark Bittman discusses extensively in Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal how our relations to food have changed from eating for nourishment into favouring instant edible foods that we no longer know from where they were sourced. The same thing could be said about clothes, whose history is lost in the advent of the fashion industry which treats clothes as commodities and is no longer fully responsible for their production.

Sofi Thanhauser begins her book by making a declarative sentence: I like clothes. What follows is a story of someone passionate enough to discover traces of human civilisation through cloth manufactured by plants in some parts of the globe or artisanal weavers still using traditional methods of producing their clothes. I initially expected this book to be a history book with periodical assessments of how our relations to clothes change from time to time. Instead, this book is not following a historical timeline, focussing on thematic explanations of five clothing materials as its central tenet, namely: linen, cotton, silk, synthetics, and wool. Four out of five materials are sourced from animals or plants, while synthetics are the only materials made artificially.

I had the initial impression that the author through this book made an attempt to advocate the return of sourcing our own clothes locally through responsible ways (and possibly, also staying in touch with the stories or meanings behind each cloth). The author, however, makes an admission: ‘Today it is no longer cheaper to make your own clothes than to buy them.’ It costs more money to make our own clothes rather than, say, buy them at a nearby department store. Neither that most people would be equipped with the necessary skills to tailor or weave their clothes. However, the author also provides an estimate that the current textile industry produces ‘a full fifth of global wastewater, and emits one-tenth of global carbon emissions’, which is quite significant in relation to mitigating climate change and food security.

There are many more disturbing statistics presented, yet the book is not without “field research” as well. The author does provide commentary on how cloth making was initially done mainly by women in between their activities, and the industrial fabric production took that vocation out of women by commoditising a leisure activity. Two materials, cotton and silk, are also close to the history of colonialism mainly in the colonisation of India, slavery in the American South, and the modern-day “eco genocide” of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang, China. In some parts of the world, lands that were previously used to plant food commodities are transformed for their purpose to turn into the cotton plantations, such as in the case of British India from 1860 to 1920, where 55 million acres of cotton came into cultivation, mainly in colonial areas. In Xinjiang, the XPCC campaign to build cotton farms also provided ecological consequences as it caused destruction to the natural land and failed to enrich the Uyghurs as it brought water scarcity to their farms.

Ecological consequences of cloth production are apparent, a view which the author reinforces by providing first-hand accounts of cloth factory workers or managers in some parts of the world that house the manufacturing plants of some of the world’s most famous fashion brands (if not for the distressing accounts, this book would make an excellent travelogue). At the same time, the author also advocates the benefits of sourcing our clothes locally, which could reduce the costs of transporting clothes from one part of the world to another, thus reducing the supply chains and other irresponsible factors in the production of clothes. Besides that, thrifting (going shopping at a thrift store, a flea market, or a garage sale) is also an option that we could consider to reduce clothes consumption. I find this book insightful, even though I would say “why we need to source our clothes responsibly” would be a more suitable subtitle than “a people’s history of clothing”.

This is a book that I would never have thought to read. It describes the history of the fabric industry, how it began in the home and gradually move into factories. A fascinating and informative read. Clearly a lot of research has gone into this book. I had never thought about how much water was required to produce fabrics. Very thought provoking. Thanks to net .galley for this free read

Really fascinating book about a topic I wouldn't normally read. I really enjoyed Sofi's analysis of the fabric industry - about how the various aspects began and were then corrupted over the ages. Disturbing and thought-provoking.

As my day job is within the fashion industry, I'm always drawn to books that explore the theme of fashion and clothing. Worn is about fabrics and how they're made. This is something you might think you know but this book certainly taught me a lot.

It addresses the point of sustainability and how damaging the fashion industry is on the planet. Something that many brands are now addressing, luckily, but so important that they all push forward in helping the industry be less damaging.

A thought-provoking, well-written read.

“When George Zieber suggested Singer take a break from the wood type machine and try to tinker with the sewing machine, he is alleged to have responded, “What a devilish machine . . . You want to do away with the only thing that keeps women quiet, their sewing.”

✮✮

The tales of fabrics and clothes, and the history behind where they come from. Sofi covers Linen, Cotton, Silk, Synthetics and Wool in a new take on their pasts.

I really wanted to love this book, but I just couldn’t. I loved reading the history of each type of clothing, but some of it just went too far for my liking personally, maybe it’s just me. For example, in the first section of the book there is a chapter labelled “Underthings”, which was amazingly written, but it went deep into an affair of an inventor of one of the first sewing machines, which honestly just felt like was extra info that wasn’t needed, you know? However, if you don’t mind things like that, maybe this book is for you!

Worn offers us a thought-provoking look at clothing fabrics – wool, linen, cotton, silk and synthetics. It explores the history of each one and explores how they’re produced today, and what that means for the people who grow and make them, and the environment. While the focus is on the USA, Worn is nevertheless well worth a read. Much of it is quite depressing, but there are glimmers of hope for a more sustainable clothing industry.

Apart from the misleading title – this is a book about fabric not clothing – I found it a wonderfully entertaining, informative and enlightening read, a wide-ranging and comprehensive study of cloth, divided into five sections – linen, cotton, silk, synthetics and wool –exploring the subject in all its various manifestations. History, culture, economics, employment, manufacture are all woven together into a thought-provoking and conscience-provoking whole. The book has actually changed the way I think and feel about clothes and made buying them really problematic. In fact, I’m not sure I will actually be able to buy them any more as it seems that every garment, in whatever fabric, has potentially damaging implications for people and planet. Back to make-do and mend, perhaps….

This is an interesting but also quite depressing look at clothing and the way that it is produced today. From fast fashion to microplastics and more, it covers all the issues that you know about from modern discourse about sustainability and clothes, but also explains the history of everything and how we got to this point. After reading it, I'm not sure that there is any fabric that isn't in some way problematic and that it's harder than I thought to be sustainable in your clothing choices. There aren't a lot of solutions to that presented here - but as it's a history of clothing perhaps that's not a surprise!

Challenging read on how different fabrics have developed and influenced our history and culture. I found it an eye opening read

A really fascinating and well presented book. So much to learn, can't wait to share facts with people at any opportunity

This was a fantastic journey through the history and modern makings of what we wear. A must read for anyone interest in cloth and clothing making.

This book doesn't pull its punches or hide things in layers it lays it out and let's you see all the faults and flaws in what we wear. But for the faults there are the innovators, the creators and the forward thinking practises.

Grab this book and rethink your wardrobe and buying.

Wow! Sofi Thanhauser's historical exploration of fabrics was a real eye-opener. It feels like it filled important gaps in the general conversation around ethical consumption - I've read some brilliant books before on fast fashion and consumerism, but never about fabric itself. It was a book I had to put down, digest and come back to at times - though that is by no means a criticism!

I would have loved the concluding section to have been a section in its own right, perhaps, as the connection between stories & fabric and the information about Kente & Asante cloth was fascinating and I'd have loved to have known more.

Would highly recommend for anyone curious about history, where their clothes are made, or both!

I enjoyed this, I found it fascinating about where are clothes are from and how they are made and it really makes you appreciate them even more.

Thank you NetGalley for my complimentary copy in return for my honest review.

Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser tells the story of the clothes on our back by relating the stories of linen, cotton, silk, viscose, nylon and wool. It is a fascinating tale but one that will have you questioning your clothes buying habits. Wool seems to be the most ethical way to go, I’m allergic to wool. Fascinating, thought provoking book.