Fugitive Denim by Rachel Lousie Snyder
March 30th, 2009Title: Fugitive Denim
Author: Rachel Louise Snyder
Publisher: W.W. Norton (2008)
As you know, I’m a bit of a business/trade nerd. I love reading pretty much anything about global trade (except, according to my college professors, my class assignments). Unfortunately it seems like most articles and books are anti-globalization. They just rail and rail on big companies and never talk about the good things that can come from it. Fortunately for us…this is not one of those books.
Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in The Borderless World of Global Trade by Rachel Louise Snyder is a really good look at one aspect of trade. Snyder limits her conversation to the garment industry, and more specifically the denim industry. She also wanted to focus on how the global trade affects people…so she spent a lot of time with different people on all sides of the industry: a high fashion design house more concerned with being environmentally friendly than profits, an Italian fabric design house struggling to stay afloat as product moves to the Far East, a couple of Cambodian garment workers, and a Chinese garment factory. It is really interesting look from some VERY different viewpoints.
I found the most interesting part of the book was when we moved over to Cambodia and China. She spent a lot of time with Ry and Nat, the Cambodian garment workers. Cambodia is a very poor country (In 2007, GDP per capita was $606…the US was $48,000) with a famously corrupt government. The were also a great place for sweatshops to flourish. During the Clinton Administration the US signed a bilateral agreement with Cambodia. The agreement said Cambodia would get a larger portion of the quota to the US if they eliminated sweatshops. (The quota system, established by the WTO after World War II, expired on January 1, 2006). Cambodia agreed and soon after there was union presence in the garment factories. (Side note: I am anti-union in the USA as I believe they cause more problems than they fix – see GM’s legacy costs – but fully support unions in places like Cambodia where they have to fight for basic worker rights and safety.) As you can imagine, conditions improved…but it has not been easy. In a place as corrupted as the Cambodian government, progress has been slow. But it is obvious how the lives of these workers are vastly improved because of the business that was brought to them. (They sew for companies like Gap, Nike, Wal-Mart, H&M, Ann Taylor, etc…)
She switched gears a bit and moved to a Chinese factory in Shenzhen, China. Shenzhen is a coastal town that was basically created out of nothing a few years ago. It is now a massive industrial town. This particular factory sews garments for a number of companies, including The Gap. As everyone is probably aware at this point, there is increasing pressure on brands to enact a higher level of corporate responsibility. For garment brands, this means a higher level of concern with their factories. The Gap is well known within the industry for having the best factory policies. One of the books chapters tags along with a third party monitoring company as they inspect a Shenzhen factory. It was really interesting to read what happens in the visits. Snyder things they are excellent ways to guarantee improved conditions, but because there is no standard…each brand has their own requirements. This leads to a lot of contradictions and unsatisfactory reports. There are a number of brands that are getting together to establish common requirements…which will lead to better conditions and more efficient standards.
All in all…this was a really interesting book that I would recommend to anyone who nerds on global trade. Like me! (A future review will be on a book discussing how container ships have changed the world. I’m stoked to read it. Seriously!)
Rating: 4 out of 5
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March 31st, 2009 at 10:15 pm
We all know the usefulness of container ships. First off, it was a container ship that found Tom Hanks in the middle of the ocean after being a castaway for 5 years and saved his life. That book sounds interesting if they have more stories like that.