Putting on the Dog
The Animal Origins of What We Wear
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- $16.99
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
In Putting on the Dog, Melissa Kwasny explores the age-old relationship between humans and the animals that have provided us with our clothing: leather, wool, silk, feathers, pearls, and fur. From silkworms grown on plantations in Japan and mink farms off Denmark’s western coast to pearl beds in the Sea of Cortés, Kwasny offers firsthand accounts of traditions and manufacturing methods—aboriginal to modern—and descriptions of the marvel and miracle of the clothing itself. What emerges is a fresh look at the cultural history of fashion.
Kwasny travels the globe to visit both large-scale industrial manufacturers and community-based, often subsistence production by people who have spent their lives working with animals—farmers, ranchers, tanners, weavers, shepherds, and artisans. She examines historical rates of consumption and efforts to move toward sustainability, all while considering animal welfare, worker safety, environmental health, product accountability, and respect for indigenous knowledge and practice.
At its heart, Putting on the Dog demonstrates how what we choose to wear represents one of our most profound engagements with the natural world.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this open-minded, complex inquiry, poet Kwasny visits farmers, artisans, and producers of skins, furs, wool, silk, feathers, and pearls in several countries to explore the relationship between animals and the people who wear them. Kwasny points out that industrialized mass production means wearers lose a connection with their clothing's origins. To reclaim it, she looks into not only the technical elements (visiting a sheepskin tannery in San Antonio, Tex.) but also the underlying philosophies (describing the Yup'ik belief that hunted animals are a gift to the hunter and not to be turned down, or looking at the use of feathers in spiritually resonant garments in Hawaiian and Aztec cultures). She compares mass production (with its environmental hazards, child labor, health risks) to smaller-scale, more sustainable operations (such as Perlas del Mar de Cortez, a Mexican pearl farm that focuses on building up the local economy and keeping the waters clean) and considers the "colonist thinking" that leads to production rules and bans (on, for instance, certain feathers) being imposed "without any comprehension of indigenous life." Kwasny describes her surroundings in lyrical but unpretentious prose and brings complexity to her project by striking a careful balance between appreciating animal-derived clothes and questioning how they are made. Anyone interested in the production side of fashion or any curious owner of a wool sweater or silk scarf will find their interest rewarded.
