Where Am I Wearing by Kelsey Timmerman (Review)

Released November 2008 (John Wiley & Sons) * 272 pages * ISBN 13: 9780470376546

Where Am I Wearing: A Global Tour to the Countries, Factories, and People that Make Our Clothes by Kelsey Timmerman grew from one of those random ideas that people have everyday, but few people actually follow through on. Standing around in his clothes and pondering the fact that he was an American clad completely in clothing made outside of America, Timmerman wondered what exactly those “Made in” labels meant in human terms. Who are these people making America’s clothes? Who made the very clothes he was wearing that day? What followed was a journey to the world’s garment factories to find the factories that made those clothes his jeans, his T-shirt, his flip-flops, and his boxers.

Timmerman’s conversational account of his journey makes the book accessible to a wide audience. It’s about the people, all over the world, trying to get by, and trying to make a better life for themselves. Timmerman spends the day with garment workers, takes us into the workers’ homes and neighborhoods, and lets us visit their families. We see the world around them and surprisingly find out that some of these workers are the lucky ones. Sometimes, making clothes is the good job. We are shown what happens when multinational corporations insist on a minimum age for workers at the behest of their customers. Some of the kids who would be working in those garment factories end up begging on the street instead, or picking through garbage dumps. Barring them from working in garment factories doesn’t mean they don’t work; it just means they don’t work making clothes — sometimes they end up with worse jobs.

It’s very easy to adopt a black and white attitude on acceptable working conditions, age, and pay if you’ve never ventured out of your own country or gone anywhere other than tourists spots. We tend to forget or have a hard time acknowledging that the norms we are used to are very specific to our circumstances. Timmerman opens the reader’s eyes to the cultural aspect of what we believe is right and wrong. He actually asks the workers about consumer movements in the countries that buy the clothes. Do they want our help? Do they want us to hold out for better working conditions for them? Are we making things better or worse with our activism? Don’t be so sure you know the answer to those questions because the answers the workers gave may surprise you.

My one issue with this book is that the emphasis on the different living standards in North America and Europe compared to the countries where many of the world’s clothes are made becomes repetitive after a while. It comes across as the natural consequence of travelling and having your eyes opened, but I felt that sometimes the experiences spoke for themselves and didn’t need explicit comments about the disparity in living standards. Depending on your mindset and your travel experiences, this may not be an issue for you. Having said that, I still needed to put the labels on my clothes in human terms, which this book helped me do, and I did enjoy the journey.

Going with Timmerman on his journey will get you thinking about your clothes in a whole new way (and if you want to do your own investigation, there’s a tongue-in-cheek guide to finding out where your clothes are made at the end of the book). My outfit today was made in China (hoodie), India (organic cotton shirt), Bangladesh (underwear), and Cambodia (jeans).

In the US and Canada, we’ve both just gone through federal elections. Take a moment to think about the fact that you vote every day, every time you open your wallet. Do you know what you’re voting for when you buy clothes?

Psst. You can also check out these reviews of Kelsey Timmerman’s book:

• Word Lily’s review
• Cindy’s review
• Luanne’s review
• Alyce’s review

Addendum: At the end of the book is a chapter called ‘Untold Stories,’ I was glad to see a short mention of MEC in this section (that’s Mountain Equipment Co-op to anyone outside of Canada). I shop at MEC mostly because I know that whatever I buy there will last and last and last (like my backpack from 1990 that’s still going strong, heh sorry — I don’t work for them). Timmerman reminded me that MEC also makes sure that their clothes are ethically sourced.

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