Fashionopolis by Dana Thomas

FASHIONOPOLIS by Dana Thomas is subtitled “The Price of Fast Fashion and the Future of Clothes” and it is clearly a topic of interest to millennials and their younger counterparts in Generation Z. In fact, I have two students who independently chose to explore fast fashion for Junior Theme so far this year. Thomas is a best-selling author and frequent contributor to a number of publications on topics related to style.  In this new non-fiction work, she begins by describing the problem and noting that “in the last twenty years, the volume of clothes Americans throw away has doubled – from 7 million to 14 million tons. That equals 80 pounds per person per year.” Thomas continues, offering numerous examples to illustrate the “creative thievery, indifference to others, corruption [and] pollution” which she argues categorizes the industry. Later in the book, Thomas shares interviews with innovative practitioners and points to more efforts towards sustainability, like exploring the use of organic cotton or more natural dyes.  She also outlines efforts by Amazon (now a major player in retail apparel) to manufacture clothing on demand – after it has been ordered.

Although less practical and action-oriented than The Conscious Closet, FASHIONOPOLIS is an intriguing blend of social issues (working conditions, NAFTA, environmental impact), fashion and technology (robots who sew, new bio-fabrics, and 3D-printing). Thomas has included almost thirty pages of notes, a selected bibliography and a helpful index for researchers. We will be purchasing and pairing FASHIONOPOLIS with other relevant titles like Inconspicuous Consumption or the much older The Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy when we make book recommendations on this topic.

 

Jump-Starting America and Loonshots

Here are two books that discuss ways we can make the economy grow faster and promote innovation.  Both of them refer to Vannevar Bush and his inspirational push for research beginning in the 1940’s and continuing through his work with the U.S. Office of Scientific Research and Development.

JUMP-STARTING AMERICA is written by Jonathan Gruber and Simon Johnson, professors at MIT of Economics and of Entrepreneurship, respectively.  They make a robust argument for more government funding of research in order to stimulate private spending and to grow the economy, saying, “the major – and now mostly forgotten – lesson of the post-1945 period is that modern private enterprise proves much more effective when government provides strong underlying support for basic and applied science and for the commercialization of the resulting innovations.” Beginning with a summary of Amazon’s search for an HQ2, they note that by choosing already successful cities “the potential for Amazon to transform lagging communities remains unfulfilled.” Therefore, Gruber and Johnson also discuss geography of localized benefits of investment, with an entire chapter titled “America: Lands of Opportunity.” This is similar in some ways to Steve Case’s and JD Vance’s efforts with “The Rise of the Rest” bus tour which was recently profiled on 60 Minutes. Gruber and Johnson point out the high cost of housing, barriers to increased supply, and differences in mobility rates for college and high school graduates, contributing to a “continued divergence between the most and the least educated in our society.” However, they also look at rankings for quality PhD programs and undergraduate institutions to explore why so few “superstar cities” emerge, offering anecdotes about both Microsoft and Amazon independently choosing Seattle over Albuquerque. JUMP-STARTING AMERICA is a fascinating look at past patterns and future potential for investment in education and research; roughly a third of this well-researched book is filled with appendices, notes and index.  

LOONSHOTS by biotechnology entrepreneur Safi Bahcall deals with “How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries.”  Bahcall writes about how small changes in structure can transform a team.  Both in the book and in his March 2019 talk at SXSW he uses the example of combining a molecule of water either with a glass of water or with a block of ice – that same molecule will react differently in different circumstances. Hence, Bahcall advocates for applying the science of phase transitions, essentially crafting life at 32 degrees Fahrenheit, supporting innovators and doers equally, plus managing the transfer, not the technology.  One chapter uses examples from new drug development to discuss the surprising fragility of loonshots and he quotes Nobel Prize winner Sir James Black as saying, “it’s not a good drug unless it’s been killed at least three times.” Bahcall list several lessons:  beware the false fail; create project champions, and LSC: listen to the suck with curiosity, noting “I find it’s when I question the least that I need to worry the most.”  Other sections of his book stress the value of spreading a system mindset and draw on examples dealing with Edwin Land and Polaroid, with Xerox’s PARC and even with James Bond or Star Wars films. Diagrams are interspersed and approximately a fourth of the book is devoted to appendices, notes and an index. The concluding section of LOONSHOTS poses an important question: “any large organization develop[s] deeply held beliefs, sometimes consciously, often not, about both strategies and products – and loonshots are contrarian bets that challenge those beliefs. Perhaps everything that you are sure is true about your products or your business model is right, and the people telling you about some crazy idea that challenges your beliefs are wrong. But what if they aren’t? … How much risk are you willing to take by dismissing their idea?”