pickAn incredible work. Thanhauser writes with passion and clarity, and particularly grabbed me in her method of organizing the subject matter. Moving from Linen to Cotton to Synthetics to Wool, the author moves through the historical record of fibre, fabric, and clothing production with a focus on the humans affected by various developments in this field. 1/?
Today's 'scratched my brain just right' sentence.
Craft tradition as telling of history hits so much harder crossing from ancient tales to modern times.
Big middle finger to the age of obsolescence. Can we have more stuff like this?
Warp vs. Weft. What are the chances I finally remember the difference after this explanation.
It's not that complicated, it is that fucked.
“Hustler-scholars“ is an epic designation, can we please make this a thing?!
“One woman carried a baby in one arm and a big knotted stick in the other, “
Get 'im, mama. 💪🏻👶🏻
Mass-produced, ready-made garments “FIT WRONG IN REAL LIFE,“
Just a reminder: You are not the wrong shape, the clothing industry on a grand scale is fucked.
Bring. 👏🏻 It. 👏🏻BACK. 👏🏻💉
“shop windows for their husband's wealth.“
“... women's clothing defined them as passive objects.“
Just another reason to champion unisex utilitarian designs and gender fuckery in couture, so anyone can wear anything somber or pretty without it being part of a heteronormative subtex-tile language of power. 😖
Oh look, another reason to hate classism: it's the foundation of accelerated fashion cycles and conspicuous consumption of clothing. 🙄
The man championed high heels and stockings because he knew he had great legs. Truly a kingly move. 👑😁👠
To absolutely no one's surprise, the original stigma against outfit repeating was economically driven.
Note, however, that at the time, it supported local artisans, and there were only TWO fashion seasons in a year. 😑
“the most literal revolution“
I see what you did there. 😁
OMG, thank you internet!
I present to you: the sheep plant, aka Medieval European conception of the origins of cotton.
Somebody, please tell me these images have been digitized.
I will also happily take modern reproductions.
Show me the sheep plant! 🐑🌱
Wh- Hell of an answer Edwin! 😯🫢
⚠️Mention of suicide
Immiserate: Cause to become poor or impoverished.
No surprise, it shares a root word with miserable. 😖
Love the imagery, Thanhauser's way with words.
“dazzled by the beauty“ 😍
bailedI‘m bailing on this. My library loan ended before I finished and the line to get it again is so long, I just don‘t have the patience to do it again. Interesting and informative but also very depressing.
pickWhat an interesting concept and subject! We talk so often about carbon emissions and waste‘s negative impact on the planet—which is true—but rarely talk about manufacturing, planting, crops, etc and that effect on our society and pollution.
pickLinen, cotton, silk, wool and petroleum: these materials are what our clothing is made from. Sofi Thanhauser has written a lively cultural history of textiles, filled with interesting—often sobering—facts. I enjoyed the audiobook very much. It is narrated by Rebecca Lowman.
When we account for the water used to process, dye and finish the textile, it takes 20,000 litres of water to make a pair of jeans, enough to grow the wheat a person would need to bake a loaf of bread each week for a year.
Water consumption increased 6-fold over the 20th c, twice the population growth rate. Worldwide, agriculture uses more water than any other sector, well ahead of industrial & domestic consumption. But much of this agricultural water use isn‘t going toward food. It‘s going toward cotton. It takes 8,500 litres to make 1 kg of cotton, compared to 3,000 l to make 1 kg of rice, 1,350 l to make that amount of maize, or 900 l to make that much wheat.
By 1959, 100 million Orlon sweaters were sold annually. By the decade‘s end, half of all women‘s sweaters in the US were made from Orlon.
Fashions regularly commented on the politics of the moment, like the 1774 pouf à l‘innoculation, a headpiece that celebrated the vaccination of the king and helped promote the idea of vaccination.
(Internet image)
The first clothes were likely made of animal skins. Researchers using the DNA of lice have determined that humans most likely began clothing themselves in hides and pelts about 170,000 years ago.
(Internet image)
Worn: A People's History of Clothing | 
Thanhauser addresses a number of key events I was previously familiar with, but also introduced me to a number of realities that had me newly appalled. 4mo
4mo