Jeans – followthethings.com

Posted on August 28, 2024January 28, 2025 by Ian Cook

Where Am I Wearing?

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Fashion

“Where Am I Wearing? A Global Tour To The Countries, Factories, and People that Make Our Clothes“
A non-fiction book written by Kelsey Timmerman and published by Wiley.
Google Books preview embedded above.

Self confessed ‘All-American Guy’ Kelsey Timmerman is curious about the ‘Made in…’ tags in his favourite clothes. He wants to go to those countries and meet the people who made them for him. So he sets off around the world to meets workers in each place. But he doesn’t work alongside them or quiz them about their pay and conditions. He wants to get to know them as people. So, in Bangladesh, they go bowling together. In Cambodia, they ride a roller-coaster. He wants to appreciate how globalisation isn’t abstract, but it happens to regular (if impoverished) people. He’s not trying to ‘nail’ a corporation. He doesn’t have strong moral views. He sees himself as an innocent abroad, a ‘touron’ (tourist + moron). Readers say this social justice meets crazy road trip book is friendly, funny, easy to read and not at all preachy. Some say everyone should go on a trip like this to appreciate who made their stuff too. What Timmerman has written either naively skims over, or brilliantly introduces, complex trade (in)justice debates. Maybe this is the best way introduce new readers to these debates? Does an example of trade justice activism have to include everything? Where do you start?

Page reference: Emma Baker, Eleanor Bird, Gemma Crease, Imogen Crookes and Coralie Sucker (2012) Where Am I Wearing? followthethings.com/where-am-i-wearing.shtml (last accessed: <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 54 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024January 28, 2025 by Ian Cook

China Blue

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Fashion

SHOW CAPITALIST EVILS

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

HUMANISE WORKERS

FIND A CHARACTER

FOLLOW THE PEOPLE

BRING MANAGERS INTO VIEW

PUT A MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE

FOLLOW THE THING

BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER

ENCOURAGE EMPATHY

“China Blue“
A documentary film directed by Micha X. Peled for Teddy Bear Films.
Trailer embedded above. Search online for streaming options here.

The first film in Micha X. Peled’s ‘Globalisation Trilogy’ is a critique of cut-price retailer Wal-Mart. For the second, Peled finds out how the goods that it sells can be so cheap. He travels to China, to a jeans factory, trying to avoid the authorities in order to make his film. The factory owner is proud, but the working conditions are harsh, and its clients are demanding. Corporate executives sourcing clothes from the factory haggle the price down. They couldn’t compete if they paid living wages. Along with factory manager Mr Lam, a charming , fun-loving 16 year old called Jasmine is the film’s main character. She trims threads, and takes pebbles out of pockets – for up to 20 hours a day. She lives in a cramped dormitory and speculates with her friends about the lives of the ‘fat and tall’ people that wear these jeans overseas. She writes a letter and places it in a pocket for a shopper to find and read. She meets someone whose jeans she has helped to make. She dreams of being a martial arts princess. She wants to work here but is worn down by the endless, tiring work. The film makes some viewers feel implicated. Only a tiny increase in the cost of those jeans could give Jasmine and her friends a living wage. But nobody in China can see this. Peled’s film was banned there.

Page reference: Jess Mayers, Alex Horgan, Sam Spicer, Mike Rastall, Rob Donald and Andi Frost (2012) China Blue. followthethings.com/china-blue.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 64 minutes.

Posted on August 28, 2024February 20, 2025 by Ian Cook

University Lifestyle: Fabulously British

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Fashion | Grocery | Electronics | Home & Auto

“University Lifestyle: Fabulously British“
Undergraduate coursework designed & written by Charlotte Brunton.
Available in full in slideshow above. High resolution download available here.

After researching examples of trade justice activism to add to this site, students taking CEO Ian’s ‘Geographies of material culture’ module at the University of Exeter are tasked to make their own. Charlotte Brunton’s inspiration comes from the junk mail arriving at her student house. Instead of getting interesting letters, she and her housemates get student fashion catalogues. In particular, Jack Wills catalogues – six or more every season. They’re selling students an ‘aspirational’ lifestyle, tempting them to buy the commodities they feature. The people in them, the things they have, the carefree, stylish and connected lifestyles they picture – the designers want students to want them. Charlotte and her friends imagine themselves using this, wearing that, experiencing the lifestyles these things can support, together. But who made these things? What about their lifestyles? Charlotte asks herself how she can create a catalogue that highlights how personal these things are both to her and to the people who made them? In real life, she has an interdependent, culture-crossing, ‘British’ life which they are very much part of. So she designs a ‘lifestyle catalogue’ that you can browse to imagine and buy into with her.

Page reference: Charlotte Brunton (2014) University Lifestyle: Fabulously British. followthethings.com/university-lifestyle-fabulously-british.shtml (last accessed <insert date here>)

Estimated browsing time: 15 minutes.

Posted on August 21, 2024January 28, 2025 by Ian Cook

Fugitive Denim

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Fuel & Auto

TEACH ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

SHOW WHAT’S POSSIBLE

CHOOSE THE RIGHT THING

INCLUDE HAUNTING & HORROR

“Fugitive Denim“
A non-fiction book by Rachel Louise Snyder published by W.W. Norton & Company.
Preview available on Google Books (embedded above).

Journalist Rachel Louise Snyder visits five countries and talks with factory workers, designers and many others who work in the global denim trade to make a pair denim jeans. She’s trying to appreciate the complex geographies connecting the people (she jokes) ‘in our pants’. To do so, she meets and works alongside the people who pick their cotton, weave their cloth, design, sew and sell them. But this isn’t another ‘sweatshop’ exposé. It’s charming, funny, haunting. And it’s showing what’s possible. The jeans she chooses to follow are more ‘progressive, humane [and] environmentally secure’ than most. So, if one brand can make jeans better, what’s stopping the others?

Page reference: Gabriela Camargo, You Bin Kang and Yvonne Yu (2011) Fugitive Denim. followthethings.com/fugitive-denim.shtml last accessed (<insert date here>)

Estimated reading time: 20 minutes.