UNRAVELED: The Life and Death of a Garment

Entrepreneur, researcher, and advocate Maxine Bédat's new book is UNRAVELED: The Life and Death of a Garment. Her research is a groundbreaking chronicle of the birth--and death--of a pair of jeans, that exposes the fractures in our global supply chains, and our relationships to each other, ourselves, and the planet. Maxine Bédat is the founder and director of New Standard Institute, a think-and-do tank dedicated to turning industry into a force for good. She is a former lawyer and the cofounder of ethical fashion brand Zady.

Episode Transcript

(00:02):
Welcome to get connected with Nina delRio, a weekly conversation about fitness,
health and happenings in our community onone oh six point seven Light FM.
Welcome to get connected, and wewill start this one by asking you to
think about your favorite pair of jeans. Maybe you boughtom on Amazon or the
Gap. Maybe the tag says madein Bangladesh or made in Sri Lanka,

(00:27):
but do you know where they reallycame from? How many thousands of miles
they crossed, or the number ofhands who picked spun, wove, dyed,
packaged, shipped and sold them.To get to you, our guest
is an entrepreneur, researcher and advocateMaxine Bedet, with her new book Unraveled,
The Life and Death of a Garment. It's a chronicle of the birth

(00:47):
and death of a pair of jeans, exposing the fractures and our global supply
chains and our relationships to each other, ourselves, and the planet. Maxine
Bedet, thank you for being onthe show. Thank you so much for
having me. The book starts withyour experience at one of those giant trade
shows at Javit Center. You wentthere trying to find out where the clothes
came from, and the answers yougot ultimately spurred you to do what you're

(01:08):
doing now, which is to stopselling clothes and focus instead on bringing light
to the impact of the fashion industry. What is that story? Where does
your story with this topic begin?Yeah, So my first foray was in
this fashion tech startup and just goinginto this huge Javit center and asking what

(01:30):
I thought was a pretty naive orpretty innocent question I should say, which
was, you know, where doesyour clothing come from? And I got
very mysterious answers, very confused looks. And it was there where I really
got the understanding that the industry didn'tknow itself where its own garments were coming
from. And that was just acuriosity that got me hooked and has led

(01:53):
me, you know, to writea book about trying to answer that question
where do our clothes come from?And the work that I do today.
So in this book, you tracethe manufacturing of genes, a ubiquitous all
American staple from farm to landfill.Why jeans in particular, Well, jeans,
they are so ubiquitous, I'm wearingthem right now. They cut across

(02:14):
gender, they cut across class,they are part of Americana, part of
our history, and yet now arethis kind of global commodity and they tell
the story, you know, ofreally everything. They tell the story of
the history of our economy, whereit has been and where it's going.
So it's just something that we're allreally connected to in a great symbol to

(02:38):
dive into and understand this broader industry. Your tour begins with a visit to
a Texas cotton farm. Even iffarmers would like to grow organic, organic
cotton, in this case, it'snot an easy choice. Why is organic
so much more of a taxing andexpensive enterprise for a farmer in the US.
Yeah, So that was one ofthe surprises for me. And I'm

(02:59):
a city slickers, so you know, spending time with farmers, I always
thought, well, like, youget paid more, So why wouldn't it
be just the obvious thing that cottonfarmers are just you know, all going
organic. What's what is the holdup? It was spending time with various
different cotton farmers that I really gotto understand, first of all, just
how challenging, challenging it is tobe a farmer to have your entire income

(03:23):
connected to whether it's going to rainon a given day, and how stressful
that existences was something that you know, I hadn't deeply been able to understand
until spending time with cotton farmers.And then added to that already you know,
risky business is organic farming. It'sa three year process to get the

(03:45):
organic certification from the government, andin that three year period you transition your
farm. You you no longer usesynthetic pesticide, so you are increasing your
costs of labor. You have tohave somebody manually picking weeds and really changing
the whole approach to farming. Soin those three years though, you're still
doing that transition, and you haveno guarantee that at the end of that

(04:09):
you're going to get a premium forthat organic cotton, that there's going to
be a buyer at the end ofthe day. So it's a more risky
endeavor than I initially understood. Also, staying in Texas until nineteen ninety six,
El Paso was kind of the denimcapital of the world. They churned
out nearly two million pairs of jeanesa week there, mostly for Levi's.

(04:30):
But you followed that cotton instead ofEl Paso, it goes now to China.
How did we and our genes getfrom Texas to China. As you
mentioned jeans, a lot of themused to be made in El Paso.
A lot of the Levi's jeanes weremade in El Paso. And then as
we opened up and the world becamemore globalized, those industries in the US
fell away and they went to placeslike China, like Bangladesh, like Sri

(04:56):
Lankan. You know, they're partof the development story there. But we
lost, you know, by andlarge, loss those industries domestically. We're
speaking with Mexine Beida. She's founderand director of the New Standard Institute,
a think and do tank dedicated toturning industry into a force for good.
She's a former lawyer and the cofounder of ethical fashion brand ZD. Her
new book is Unraveled, The Lifeand Death of a Garment. You're listening

(05:20):
to get connected on one oh sixpoint seven light FM. I'm Nina del
Rio, So when I'll pass allthose years ago. A pair of genes
might cost just under seven dollars tomake. In Mexico, it's less than
half that, but in China it'sabout a dollar fifty a pair, and
one of the reasons, as youexplain in the book, is the cost
of energy in China. Can youtalk about why energy is cheap in China

(05:43):
and kind of the global repercussions ofthat. So energy is cheap in China
because they're still utilizing a mostly coldbased energy grid, that is, you
know, the cheapest form still ofenergy. And then you know, in
the fashion industry, we've moved tothis very fashion disposable business model, so
clothing is not being worn for verymany times before we get rid of it,

(06:05):
so the cycle is very fast towe're producing more we have not wearing
it very long, and then producingit in a very energy intensive process to
take fibers and turn them into fabricand die and finish them. It takes
a lot of heat and energy tomake that whole process happen. And then

(06:25):
we're doing it in countries like Chinathat are using very carbon intensive energy.
And so you add all of thosepieces up, and that's why the fashion
industry has a greater carbon footprint thanthe entire countries of France, Germany,
and the United Kingdom combined. Andat this point we're not just talking about
cotton, we're also talking about nylon, and polyester and spandex man made fabrics

(06:46):
made all over the world, wornall over the world, which you're also
now showing up in the world asmicrofibers. What are microfibers and why are
they ending up in water and soiland all these things. Yeah, so
microfibers of what microplastics are component arethe little fibers, microscopic fibers that come
off in when we're washing our garments, even when we're using these garments,

(07:10):
and they're showing up literally everywhere.They're showing up at the very bottom of
the ocean, they're showing up onthe banks of rivers, They're showing up
at the top of mountains. They'reshowing up in our air. They're showing
up in our drinking water, They'reshowing up in the bodies of people,
in the in our fish supply.They are blanketed everywhere. And scientists are
you know, now doing the researchto get an understanding of the impact that

(07:33):
these plastics that are entering our bodiesare having on our physical systems. But
you know, the microplastic component ofmicrofibers, the plastics aren't going away.
They don't degrade in the way thatwe think of, you know, foods
biodigrating. The plastics just stick aroundand they're accumulating in our body and ways

(07:56):
in which scientists don't even know theimpact yet, but it is a dangerous
saying. And the industry is relyingon these very cheap plastic fibers. The
polyester is now the most dominant fibertype in our clothing, and you know,
we don't even know yet the impactthat we've had on these with this
microfiber that is literally everywhere blanketing everything. We're also interested, I guess or

(08:18):
the fashion industry is also interested incheap labor. And you went to Bangladesh
and saw people in factories, hadthe opportunity to speak at a worker at
her home about her work. Canyou talk about what you saw in the
factory and what you took away fromthe conversation with the person you spoke with.
Yeah, so, I you know, had the opportunity to visit these
factories. You know, just theintensity of the work was something that struck

(08:43):
me. So you know, ifyou make a pair of genes, what
happens is the production is in aproduction line. So there maybe thirty people,
mostly women sitting at sewing machines andthe components start at the beginning,
and then by the end of theproduction line you have a you know,
perfectly folded and made pair of jeans. And how that is created is through

(09:05):
industrial engineering. The lines are setup so that each woman has two seconds
of work and she's doing the samething over and over and over and over
and over and over and over again, you know, for ten, twelve
or eighteen hours a day. Andbeing able to spend time with garment workers
in their home and having the conversations, you know, I wanted to know

(09:26):
what these women were thinking about.And you know, there was a really
challenging conversation that I had in whichI was kind of enlightened to the challenge
of that job. You know,I thought that there was some you know,
live active conversation, internal conversation thatwould be happening. But I asked
the garment worker, you know,what is she thinking about? And she
was confused by the question. Andthen you know, we finally got to

(09:50):
the bottom of them and she's like, I don't have time to think.
It's just work harder, don't makea mistake, work harder, don't make
a mistake, work harder. Don'tmake a mistake, and just the humanity
of that is what struck me.How we are really reducing people to literal
machines and then you know, justtrying to find the other thing that's happening
is you know, automation, iswe're working people to machine to be machines

(10:13):
and then replacing them with those machineswhen possible, and that is a it's
a it's a hard thing to face, but that's the reality behind much of
the cheap clothing that is out there. People who try to be aware of
the world, I think, youknow, are likely aware to some degree
the fashion is not a clean business. So we try to do things like
by what sould is sustainable or ethical? Do those terms actually mean anything?

(10:37):
Is there any standardized set of guidelinesaround who can use those terms? No,
that is not There is no setstandard in the term sustainable like there
is in the word organic. Youknow, that is a regulated term.
Sustainable is not a regulated term,and it is being bandied about. So
it is very hard for consumers whowant to do the right thing, who

(11:00):
want to be thoughtful about their choices, to actually make that choice. And
that's why we've turned the work thatI do at the New Standard Institute is
focused on policy to be able toallow citizens to have good choices and not
have to sacrifice you know, theethics or the planet for the clothing that

(11:20):
they wear. Even brands too.I mean, what incentives after bad press
fades are there for brands to choosebetter partners with better manufacturing practices. If
it's so cheap over there, whyreally change? Yeah, that's exactly the
problem is that there isn't a realincentive for companies to change. It's why
we need policy. It's why regulationexists so that there is the incentive that

(11:45):
it's you know, becomes required bylaw to make those changes, because at
the moment, yeah, companies arenot incentivized. The whole incentive structure for
the industry is this race to thebottom for both wages and for environment for
practices. Some people appear to beyou know, sort of taking this on
themselves by you know, buying usedclothing or renting clothing. Is there we

(12:07):
don't even know if that's a lastingtrend, But is there some other way
in the meantime to really sort oflook at this as a consumer? Yeah,
So there are a couple of thingsI think one you know, is
this is an invitation from a personalpurchasing standpoint. You know, in doing
research for this book, I gotto speak to a lot of shoppers,
people you know, like me,like you, and what I heard was

(12:31):
a lot of frustration. It wasmy also entry point into this industry is
we have a lot of clothes,and yet this feeling like we have nothing
to wear. And so it's reallyan invitation to actually get to know your
closet, understand what one likes anddoesn't like. And there's you know,
a whole group of d influencers nowwho are helping consumers understand their body shapes

(12:56):
more, you know, helping peoplereally get dressed in a thought whole way.
You know, if we really likeour clothing and invest in it,
that's going to be in terms ofour own individual purchasing practices. The most
sustainable impact that we can have thatfar outreaches anything marketed as sustainable, is
if we just wear our clothing fora normal amount of time and not get

(13:18):
rid of it, you know,after a year, because it was something
that we never really like to beginwith. So this is a real invitation
for people to enjoy their clothing toto actually get to know their clothes so
they can they can like it.And then also as a way to see
that it's not just as a consumerthat we can have an impact we haven't
impact as citizens, and demanding thatpolicy is created that puts guidelines, you

(13:43):
know, puts basic regulations in placeso that we don't have to sacrifice,
you know, the climate, orexploit people just to get dressed. Our
guest is Mexine Bade. Her newbook is Unraveled, The Life and Death
of a Garment. Thank you forbeing on get Connected. Thank you so
much for having me. This hasbeen get Connected with Nina del Rio on

(14:05):
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