Book review: Stitched Up – The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion

Stitched Up is far from your traditional fashion tome: for starters, the two quotes acting as the foreword of Tansy E Hoskins’ debut work, Stitched Up: The Anti-Capitalist Book of Fashion, have more to do with philosophy and political ideology than Fashion Week and Miuccia Prada.

Though insights into the fashion industry form the foundation of Stitched Up, it’s Hoskins’ shrewd eye for detail – both anecdotal and analytical – history of activism, objectivism and “anti-capitalist perspective” that bolsters and bleeds through each page. Initial steps into the narrative landscape of Stitched Up are as jolting and jarring, as they are stimulating; in the introduction, Hoskins may state that for “every critical word in [the] book”, the same industry she critiques produces a “beautifully handcrafted item that captures the spirit of its time” – but, she certainly doesn’t pull any punches.

In the fifth chapter, “A Bitter Harvest”, Hoskins relates in gruesome, but not gratuitous, detail the various inhumane “killing methods” of crocodiles – some are bludgeoned to death; others are beheaded with machetes – all for “inordinately expensive” Hermès bags.

And, in the seventh chapter – the, one assumes, rhetorically titled, “Is Fashion Racist?” – Hoskins does not only explore the issue of catwalk and fashion periodical cover “white-washing”, but the roots of the issue and its corollaries, whilst also exposing the oft overlooked nuances that contribute to an “accepted level of racism [that] is unimaginable in almost any other industry”. As said, no punches have been pulled.

But is Hoskins right? By not mincing her words, whilst simultaneously trying to reconcile the facets of fashion that are palatable – both ethically and aesthetically – Hoskins treads a precarious path and lays herself open to criticism from more forthright anti-capitalists, as well as steadfast fast-fashion types. Nonetheless, it is a job that must be done, and Hoskins should be commended for it, not condemned. Additionally, once one hits the crux of Stitched Up it becomes mightily manifest that this book is not about Hoskins being right – it’s whether or not we, as readers, consumers and clients, are right in continuing to let a hyper-capitalist industry trussed up as an art form dominate not only our spending habits, but the social and ecological order of our world.

As well as shining a brutal and highly unflattering spotlight on an industry more commonly seen through rose-tinted Instagram filters, in the final three chapters, Hoskins also proffers possible ways of extrication. It is this, above all else, which helps Stitched Up transcend not only the confines of conventional fashion writing, but also writing with a socio-political and economical message at its heart: as opposed to “showing” and “telling”, Hoskins “tells” and then “suggests” – leaving the reader to extrapolate, contemplate and reach their own conclusions.

“On the morning of 24 April 2013, a group of garment workers argued with their managers outside Rana Plaza, a commercial building in Dhaka, Bangladesh, which contained a number of clothing factories. The garment workers said the building was unsafe… The managers replied that anyone refusing to enter the building would have their wages docked, not just for that day but for the entire month… An hour later, the eight-storey building collapsed on itself… Thousands of workers dropped through floors and were crushed by falling pillars and machinery. Survivors were trapped in a living grave.” so starts the fourth chapter of Stitched Up, “Stitching It”; over the course of the chapter, Hoskins reviews Rana Plaza, as well as the numerous industrial tragedies and inequities of years past.

And, as this calendar year – a year of “hashtag activism” (see Fashion Revolution’s #insideout campaign, with aims to get clothing conglomerates to be more transparent with who makes their products and at what cost) and harrowing exposés (see BBC Two’s documentary, “Clothes To Die For”, a compilation of stories from Rana Plaza survivors a year on from the incident) – winds down, Stitched Up offers one of the best means of fully computing the fashion industry as it currently stands, and what it would mean for us all if it were to fall.

Tara Okeke

For more information, visit Tansy’s website.