Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost Of Cheap Fashion (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
Amazing. Wonderful. Stunning. I cannot recommend this book enough! Everyone needs to read it. I've become disenchanted over the years at my clothing options at stores like Target, Forever 21, and H&M, and Elizabeth Cline put into words everything I was already thinking. I'll probably never shop at those type of stores again, except for "basics" like socks & tanks. I disagree with many of the other reviews here on Goodreads - those who claim the author gave no suggestions as to what the reader should do given all this new information. If you stop shopping at Forever 21, well, then what? Did you even read the book? Elizabeth Cline gives countless suggestions throughout the book! She talks about independent designers who have their clothing made in New York. She speaks on the lost art of sewing and mending our clothing in a disposable fashion era. Seek out these designers, shop vintage, and learn to sew and mend your own clothes! You could turn a too-big skirt with a great pattern into a fabulous piece for your closet simply by forming it to your body, for example. Additionally, this book should make you change your attitude towards fashion. Clothing is meant to be invested in - not only for quality, but to insure good fabrics, a living wage for garment workers, and a cycle of sustainability overall. This was a quick read and an interesting take on the current fast fashion industry. There are a few excursions into the past history and the potential future of the garment industry, but mostly the book focusing on the phenomenon of what is currently called fast fashion. As the topic is of great interest to me, I kept wishing for more detail and a longer more thoroughly researched book. I enjoyed how the author linked what she was researching to her own life and described how her behavior changed based no what she learned changed. If you have ever wondered why we wear the garments that we do, I suggest you read this book even though it will leave you somewhat unsatisfied and hoping for an expanded newer edition.
What do You think about Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost Of Cheap Fashion (2012)?
I read this for the Red Couch Book Club (but, as usual, months behind everyone else). I knew it would change my perceptions about the fashion industry in ways I might not like, and I was correct. Cline examines our society's growing addiction to fast fashion and ever-lower prices, and shows us how it's affecting the whole world. She illustrates the decline of quality clothing over the past hundred years and goes into Chinese sweatshops and Dominican fair-trade factories. Overdressed is a more engaging read than I expected, and very important, even though (maybe because) it'll make you uncomfortable. Because she's right - something has to change.
—slim_shyda
To me the book was quite enlightening with its statistics and fleshing out about the cheap fashion crisis beyond what most people already know. However, the main problem that bugged me was the jumbled nature of the book, leading to lots of repitition. I'm definitely motivated to be more conscience of what I purchase, checking tags for risky and place if origin, but I wish the author had provided more practical dilutions to the problem she prompted. Sewing may be a skill I can learn and do, yet others can't afford the time. Even more others simply cannot afford to invest in the higher quality and more expensive clothing.
—maymay
Interesting subject, but not sure it was well written as it could have been.
—KSWright
