Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, and Trafficking

By Anne Elizabeth Moore and The Ladydrawers

Ever wondered who makes your clothes? Who sells them? How much they get paid? How the fashion and sex industries are intertwined?Threadbare draws the connections between the international sex and garment trades and human trafficking in a beautifully illustrated comics series. Anne Elizabeth Moore, in reports illustrated by top-notch comics creators, pulls at the threads of gender, labor, and cultural production to paint a concerning picture of a human rights in a globalized world. Moore's reporting, illustrated by members of the Ladydrawers Comics Collective, takes the reader from the sweatshops of Cambodia to the traditional ateliers of Vienna, from the life of a globetrotting supermodel to the warehouses of large clothing retailers, from the secondhand clothing industry to the politics of the sex trade. With thoughtful illustrations of women's stories across the sex and garment supply chain, this book offers a practical guide to a growing problem few truly understand.Featuring the work of Leela Corman, Julia Gfrörer, Simon Häussle, Delia Jean, Ellen Lindner, and Melissa Mendes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Microcosm Publishing
• Release date: May 3, 2016
• ISBN: 9781621063544

Book preview

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Chapter One: The United States

Endnotes

Chapter Two: Austria

Endnotes

Chapter Three: Cambodia

Endnotes

Chapter Four: The World

Endnotes

About the Ladydrawers

About the Contributors

"Threadbare takes us down the rabbit hole of the global fashion and textile industries, connecting the dots between the lives of the women who work at Forever 21 and the women who sew the clothes that hang on the racks there. With vivid storytelling and deep investigation. Anne Elizabeth Moore and her team of talented cartoonists prove the strength of comics as a tool for translating impossible complexity to our everyday experience." —Jessica Abel, author of Out on the Wire, La Perdida, and Drawing Words & Writing Pictures

"A fascinating look into the lives behind our clothes. From the people who make them, to the people who model them, to the people who sell them, our clothes are part of an intricate network which spans the globe. The art in Threadbare helps draw a personal connection to what might otherwise be overwhelming statistics, and gives an intimate look into the way the world is affected by what we buy." —Sarah Glidden, author of Rolling Blackouts and How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less

"Threadbare is a brilliant amalgam of art, storytelling, consciousness-building, and old-fashioned muckraking. It takes on the enormous project of confronting the international apparel trade, through delving into individual stories and lifting up voices that are usually suppressed or ignored in mass media. The Ladydrawers collective and Anne Elizabeth Moore bring us face to face, literally, with the people most affected by labor exploitation and abuse—and in seeing their faces, we understand the realities beyond the facts. An intrepid journey!" —Maya Schenwar, editor-in-chief of Truthout and author of Locked Down, Locked Out: Why Prison Doesn’t Work and How We Can Do Better

"Describing the environmental, social, economic and personal costs of fast fashion in a style cool as gin, Threadbare is both a damning indictment and a stellar example of comics journalism." —Molly Crabapple, author of Drawing Blood

"A compelling and comprehensive portrait of the human cost behind what we wear. The sharp, gorgeous, and distressing Threadbare will leave you questioning both your wardrobe and the state of the world as a whole." —Tim Hanley, author of Investigating Lois Lane and Wonder Woman Unbound

Well-researched, engaging, and full of surprising (and sometimes horrifying) statistics, you may finish reading this book and decide to become an activist—no longer shopping for clothes at your local mall and pressuring your elected officials for legislation that holds clothing manufacturers and retailers responsible. —Lisa Wilde, author of Yo, Miss: A Graphic Look at High School

Colleges offering degree programs in fashion need to add this book to the curriculum. A must read!!!! —Carol Tyler, author of Late Bloomer and You’ll Never Know

Praise for Threadbare

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Praise for the

Ladydrawers Comics Collective

Wry.—New York Times Magazine

Beautifully illustrated intellectual ammunition. —ThinkProgress

Depressing news, but the comic makes it a little easier to swallow. —Bitch

Making an art form out of researching and publishing findings that others might write or talk about. —Forbes

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Praise for

Anne Elizabeth Moore

One of the sharpest thinkers and cultural critics bouncing around the globe today.

—Razorcake

Notable underground author. —The Onion

"Anne Elizabeth Moore lets readers peer over her shoulder as she attempts the implausible. It turns out, the implausible is hard, and funny, and tragic, and illuminating, but once you sign

Reviews for Threadbare

[plappen_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

In graphic novel form, this book shows the connection between the people who sew the clothes, the models who wear the clothes and the mall stores that sell the clothes. The number of such stores is rapidly shrinking, as chain after chain goes out of business because they are not fast enough in satisfying the public's fashion needs.In the past, there were several different fashion lines per year, so clothes might be in a mall store for up to several weeks. These days, if a shopper sees something they like, they should buy it today, because it may not be there next week. What happens to the unsold clothes? Some of them may end up at a place like Goodwill. Others will go to specialized companies that buy the clothes for pennies per pound. They recycle some of the clothes into insulation, for instance, while a large amount gets shipped overseas to be sold (not to the country where they were made). An increasing amount of unsold clothes goes right to the local landfill. Americans donated about 12 pounds of clothes per capita to charity, but, in 2012, about 70 pounds of clothes per person went in the trash.The Asian factories where these clothes are made are literally sweatshops. The workers are, metaphorically, chained to their sewing machines all day. The pay is low, and the conditions are terrible. Workers can be fired for practically any reason. Health and worker safety laws that American workers rely on are non-existent in these factories. American-created free trade agreements, like NAFTA, are a major reason for the disappearance of the American textile industry. In desperation to leave the garment factories, many women will join the sex industry. It certainly has its own set of disadvantages, but the pay is a lot better than in the garment business. Anti-sex trafficking NGOs, to get women out of the sex trade, will put them in front of a sewing machine for many hours a day, putting them right back where they started.This is a very eye-opening book. As a graphic novel, it is very easy to read. A blurb on the back of this book says that colleges that offer degrees in fashion need to add this book to the curriculum. That is a very good idea.