Worn

A thorough explainer of where the building blocks of clothes come from

Clothing and fashion have always been important – though somewhat maligned and trivialized – and this book is an excellent overview of innovation in clothing and the impact clothing had on global politics. It also goes into the labor – both paid and unpaid – that historically has gone, and still goes, into the production of clothing. It also focuses on women’s involvement (often unpaid) and how women’s legal precarious legal status upheld their often unpaid or underpaid labor.

“Under coverture, married women legally owned nothing, but by custom they possessed the linens. The word ‘coverture’ appeared in English for the first time around 1200 and was originally a term used for a coverlet or quilt. Beneath this quilt, appropriately enough, lay the rightful territory of women: the linens.”

This book is a thorough explainer of where the building blocks of clothes come from and the social history that goes with that farming and manufacturing. We travel from the agriculture of the middle ages, through the industrial revolution and slavery in the United States, and into the lasting effects of colonialism. Parts of this book are very dark, but I think it is important to understand the real and metaphorical journey clothes – a necessity for everyone – took before they arrived on the hangers of H&M. I learned a lot and fleshed out my previously-held knowledge. It dovetailed really well with the two Stuff You Missed in History Class podcast episodes about the invention of the sewing machine and the life of Isaac Merritt Singer.

I was lucky enough to read it in conjunction with They Were Her Property by Dr. Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers, which also talked about women, class, and clothing production, focusing specifically on female slave ownership in the antebellum South. They fit together well and I would recommend them both. Cotton agriculture in the American South, which relied on slavery, was hugely important to cotton production for clothes, and Thanhauser does not attempt to gloss over this fact in this short, but informative book.