Fixing Fashion: Rethinking the Way We Make, Market and Buy Our Clothes

The best way to describe Fixing Fashion is to call it part resume, part life story, and part fashion history textbook that includes every facet of the business from concept to placement on store shelves. This is a book that demands to be read if you need to acquire a well-rounded vision of and education in the business of fashion. The only restriction within is that the subject matter speaks primarily to the topics of mass retailers and mega-brands.

Lavergne intends to educate the reader about the practices that are in place for much of the apparel that floods the marketplace today. He speaks to those who are interested in sustainability, fair labor practices, sourcing, the environment, as well as marketing strategies and tactics. This is not a book of light reading or some fluff that is the usual fare when it comes to fashion. This is the unvarnished, invisible, complex, and no holds barred side of fashion.

It has always been my opinion that many of these concerns and issues that surround the manufacture of most fashion products is of little concern to the consumer—and apparently Lavergne agrees with that. He very simply tells us or reminds those of us in the fashion arena that the ever hungry consumer is more interested in price, trend and style than they are about the how , when, why, and who actually produced said product.

The take away here may be that you learn about the effect that the fashion industry and its practices have on the world’s environment, which affects all human beings—not just the fashionable kind.