This is overall a good episode from one of my favourite podcasts but there's an offhand comment "because cotton didn't grow in Japan" and that's really not true at all.
Cotton's been grown in Japan for like four centuries, light industry including cotton processing was a major development of the Meiji restoration and by pre-war Japan was a major producer of cotton, cotton is the traditional stuffing for futons and indigo dyed cotton fabric was the typical dress of the common people.
Its true of course that cotton nowadays things like Japanese selvedge denim normally use imported cotton, that cotton doesn't have the antiquity of hemp or linen or silk in Japan and that Japan's pursuit of autarky made it an early enthusiast for synthetic fibers and in fact its still true that that actual point you were making Japan's ability to produce cheap clothing for the US market was a function of imported fabric remains valid but one feels compelled to follow internet tradition and leave a comment.
My sincere apologies- I should have made it more clear- and I worded this so confusingly! You're so right- the only reason cotton wasn't being manufactured in Japan after WWII was because of the temporary lack of infrastructure! Thank you for this note and this correction-- I'll take this part out.
Wow, good work beating me to the punch in noting this. Cotton is still broadly grown in East Asia today - my grandparents grew and picked cotton in China into the early 90s even though they had day jobs as government officials, and out of necessity even, since well into the 90s rice and other staples were distributed via centralized ticket booklets and everyone was dirt poor even in positions of political privilege (and yes, I was thoroughly confused as to why I was told that I couldn't say that my grandparents were cotton pickers when I first got to America in the 4th grade when that's what they did literally most of the time). Japan arguably made what was utilitarian into an art form without sacrificing utility, to the point where I tried to put on an art show in 07 in LA that just featured worn raw denim Japanese jeans (except people really didn't like the idea of loaning me their jeans for a couple of weeks), although this is hardly new - tanegashima arquebuses made it to Japan by way of a shipwreck and within 50 years innovations including a rudimentary waterproofing system and tactics that had much more in common with Napoleon's tactics than Mansfeld's. Within a generation, it gave the Oda clan a degree of dominance that was positive Napoleonic (before fighting that ground war in Russia in winter) and took on a Deus Ex Machina role that effectively beat the Europeans to the punch in implementing similar square tactics by hundreds of years. Limitations and constrictions form the mother of creativity, after all. Oh, and on the same timescale, Japanese raw denim jeans within a generation or two became the apotheosis of the garment to the point where it easily outpriceed most non-boutique American brands and spawned a reflexive American subculture that is meta before meta was a thing. Superfuture.com in 08 was pretty wild in that it had the most Bret Easton Ellis type attitude circa Less than Zero but expressed by a bunch of denim nerds and almost entirely discussed the minutiae of hyperlocal clothing around the globe. It was quite the time for the subcultural forums era of the web, and basically the complimentary side of Edward Said. I don't even think that it's necessarily a infrastructure thing entirely since all of the parts were available prior to the war - Levi's date back to the gold rush after all - but all of these circumstances run at their own pace and can only really run at their own pace and arrive both in a planned way and also out of the blue, like Gandalf.
This is good, important work. I love your unabashed contempt for self-auditing, accounting auditors trying to do social auditing, and ... audit consultants. I mean, really! Lots of facepalming in this episode.
Really interesting episode. One thing I always wonder, when I hear about the human costs of cheap clothes, is whether buying more expensive clothes actually correlates with better quality, fewer human rights abuses, better environmental practices, etc. I like the idea of paying more for things that will last longer and have fewer negative externalities, but I'm sure we can all think of consumer goods where a higher priced item is just a piece of junk with fancier branding.
That's a good point Julia. I guess it's more accurate to talk about the human cost of low purchasing prices, which don't necessarily tell us a lot about the retail price.
Looks like an interesting episode, I'm looking forward to listening. I'm a former health and safety auditor that did internal audits for my multinational (non fashion) company. I know how hard it was to audit even internally having access to internal documents, having the time to prepare ahead and having authority, experience and full access. An external auditor could easily be misled by a company and given a "tour" instead of completing an "inspection".
such a great question! Really, it's a matter of if they post their audits and their factory information! And if they don't, ask them about it!
Tbh I sort of enjoy Notes on here. It’ll take time obviously but it’s fun. Feels sort of early days on Twitter
This is overall a good episode from one of my favourite podcasts but there's an offhand comment "because cotton didn't grow in Japan" and that's really not true at all.
Cotton's been grown in Japan for like four centuries, light industry including cotton processing was a major development of the Meiji restoration and by pre-war Japan was a major producer of cotton, cotton is the traditional stuffing for futons and indigo dyed cotton fabric was the typical dress of the common people.
Its true of course that cotton nowadays things like Japanese selvedge denim normally use imported cotton, that cotton doesn't have the antiquity of hemp or linen or silk in Japan and that Japan's pursuit of autarky made it an early enthusiast for synthetic fibers and in fact its still true that that actual point you were making Japan's ability to produce cheap clothing for the US market was a function of imported fabric remains valid but one feels compelled to follow internet tradition and leave a comment.
Thank you so much, Shinanoki!
My sincere apologies- I should have made it more clear- and I worded this so confusingly! You're so right- the only reason cotton wasn't being manufactured in Japan after WWII was because of the temporary lack of infrastructure! Thank you for this note and this correction-- I'll take this part out.
Wow, good work beating me to the punch in noting this. Cotton is still broadly grown in East Asia today - my grandparents grew and picked cotton in China into the early 90s even though they had day jobs as government officials, and out of necessity even, since well into the 90s rice and other staples were distributed via centralized ticket booklets and everyone was dirt poor even in positions of political privilege (and yes, I was thoroughly confused as to why I was told that I couldn't say that my grandparents were cotton pickers when I first got to America in the 4th grade when that's what they did literally most of the time). Japan arguably made what was utilitarian into an art form without sacrificing utility, to the point where I tried to put on an art show in 07 in LA that just featured worn raw denim Japanese jeans (except people really didn't like the idea of loaning me their jeans for a couple of weeks), although this is hardly new - tanegashima arquebuses made it to Japan by way of a shipwreck and within 50 years innovations including a rudimentary waterproofing system and tactics that had much more in common with Napoleon's tactics than Mansfeld's. Within a generation, it gave the Oda clan a degree of dominance that was positive Napoleonic (before fighting that ground war in Russia in winter) and took on a Deus Ex Machina role that effectively beat the Europeans to the punch in implementing similar square tactics by hundreds of years. Limitations and constrictions form the mother of creativity, after all. Oh, and on the same timescale, Japanese raw denim jeans within a generation or two became the apotheosis of the garment to the point where it easily outpriceed most non-boutique American brands and spawned a reflexive American subculture that is meta before meta was a thing. Superfuture.com in 08 was pretty wild in that it had the most Bret Easton Ellis type attitude circa Less than Zero but expressed by a bunch of denim nerds and almost entirely discussed the minutiae of hyperlocal clothing around the globe. It was quite the time for the subcultural forums era of the web, and basically the complimentary side of Edward Said. I don't even think that it's necessarily a infrastructure thing entirely since all of the parts were available prior to the war - Levi's date back to the gold rush after all - but all of these circumstances run at their own pace and can only really run at their own pace and arrive both in a planned way and also out of the blue, like Gandalf.
are there ways to figure out if the newer companies claiming to be “sustainably sourced” and “ethical” are even legit?
I would love to hear an article about mending! Particularly up-mending/ mending as an art form.
This is good, important work. I love your unabashed contempt for self-auditing, accounting auditors trying to do social auditing, and ... audit consultants. I mean, really! Lots of facepalming in this episode.
Really interesting episode. One thing I always wonder, when I hear about the human costs of cheap clothes, is whether buying more expensive clothes actually correlates with better quality, fewer human rights abuses, better environmental practices, etc. I like the idea of paying more for things that will last longer and have fewer negative externalities, but I'm sure we can all think of consumer goods where a higher priced item is just a piece of junk with fancier branding.
That's a good point Julia. I guess it's more accurate to talk about the human cost of low purchasing prices, which don't necessarily tell us a lot about the retail price.
Looks like an interesting episode, I'm looking forward to listening. I'm a former health and safety auditor that did internal audits for my multinational (non fashion) company. I know how hard it was to audit even internally having access to internal documents, having the time to prepare ahead and having authority, experience and full access. An external auditor could easily be misled by a company and given a "tour" instead of completing an "inspection".