Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

Over-Dressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion By Elizabeth L.CIine (2012)

Elizabeth Cline has published articles in various media including television, magazines, newspapers, and blogs. In this book, Cline provides an insightful look into current clothing trends and the backward slide of consumers toward cheaper, even throwaway, of-the-minute styles embraced by today's younger generation. She provides an in-depth perspective on how we have evolved in our spending habits for this most basic necessity-clothing.

Cheap, trendy fashions have taken over the American apparel industry and have changed the way consumers visualize their clothing, its quality, how it is made, and from what type of fabrics. Cheap fashion, or as Cline calls it-Fast Fashion- is an unfortunate consumer philosophy that Americans have adopted. For the past several years, American consumers have been frenzied shoppers looking for bargain priced clothing while sacrificing quality, fit, and fabric. This consumption pattern has affected all aspects of the apparel industry.

American clothing consumption trends are dismal-we are purchasing cheap clothing at unbelievable rates. The emerging philosophy is that more is better and trendy is the norm. Americans typically purchase an average of 64 items of clothing per year. However, due to cheaper overseas labor costs, clothing imports currently total $365 billion per year. As the book states, if U.S. consumers would agree to pay only 1% more for U.S.-made clothing, this could create approximately 200,000 jobs per year in...