OVERDRESSED

Fast fashion and disposable clothing have become our newnorms. We buy $10 shoes from Target that disintegrate within a few wears and make weekly pilgrimages to Forever 21 and H&M. Elizabeth Cline argues that this rapid cycle of consumption isn’t just erasing our sense of style and causing massive harm to the environment and human rights – it’salso bad for our souls.

Cline documents her own transformation from fast-fashionaddict to conscientious shopper. She takes a long look at her overstuffed closet, resolves her cheap imported boots, travels to the world’s only living-wage garment factory, and seeks out cutting-edge local and sustainable fashion, all on her journey to find antidotes to the out-of-control shopping that has take on much of the world. Cline looks at the impact here and abroad of America’s drastic increase in cheap clothing imports, visiting cheap-chic factories in Bangladesh and China and exploring the problems caused by all those castoffs we donate to the Salvation Army. She also shows how consumers can vote with their dollars to grow the sustainable clothing industry, reign in the conventional apparel market, and wear their clothes with pride. As The Omnivore’s Dilemma changed the way we look at food, Overdressed will change the way we look at clothes. Elizabeth Cline is a writer and editor who holds a B.A. in Political Philosophy from Syracuse University. She has written for AMCtv.com, the Daily Beast, New York, Popular Science, The New Republic, Village Voice, seedmagazine.com, Nerve.com, and YourTango.com.