Little known super heroes

I don't really have any new projects to share this week as there hasn't been much change from last week. Instead, I want to talk a bit more about the book I'm nearly done with. I've mentioned it in passing before. It's Worn: A People's History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser. 

While I have found it to be interesting, it has neither been a fast read nor an altogether pleasant one. When I started it, I felt as though I had a pretty good grasp of the human and environmental toll that textile and clothing production took on our world. I didn't even know the half of it when it comes right down to it. It's egregious in so many ways. 

The book outlined different materials for creating cloth... cotton, silk, and synthetics (which would include extruded materials such as rayon). Cotton in large scale production is ... not great. Silk is becoming increasingly difficult to produce because of land loss, and synthetics... ? I'm pretty sure I will not be able to buy synthetic anything retail ever again and will even be very hesitant to buy it second hand. It's bad. Like really, really bad. And this is coming from someone who already has a pretty good awareness of how bad it was. I'm actually extremely hesitant to buy anything retail. 

So after all this utterly depressing and distressing information, she ends the book with a section on wool. I will tell you, never have I felt like such a super hero. Ms. Thanhauser has a whole section on the redemptive power of people who choose to process, spin, knit, and weave with wool, especially those who buy from small individual farmers and producers. From hand spinners creating a market for endangered sheep breeds (and thus saving them from extinction) to mill owners who purchase obsolete spinning and weaving machines to anyone who opts for hand crafted clothing, we are the one bright light in a pretty dismal situation. Choosing fewer clothes whose provenance we actually know and choosing slow fashion over fast fashion is important. 

The spinning community is definitely on the upswing growth wise. One of my spinning groups has 36,000 members. A knitting group has 49,000 members. It's small compared the general population, it is also more than one would suspect given it's rather esoteric nature. 

We need to recognize the role clothing and textiles play in our lives. We need to stop letting them be invisible and recognize their importance and their cost. Read this book, not because you'll enjoy it, but because we need to be informed about something we take for granted.