Fugitive Denim: Globalization tales of the traveling pants

What do you look for when you buy a pair of jeans? Color? Cut? Designer label? Price tag? One thing is certain: Even if you buy what you think is the same make/label/origin, year after year, it is an entirely different item with a brand-new geographic story. If you want to get a handle on the facts and fancy surrounding this ubiquitous icon of American consumerism, check out Rachel Louise Snyder's "Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade." Chances are, you'll never buy a pair of jeans again without recalling the amazing stories contained in her book.

What do you look for when you buy a pair of jeans? Color? Cut? Designer label? Price tag? One thing is certain: Even if you buy what you think is the same make/label/origin, year after year, it is an entirely different item with a brand-new geographic story.The cotton originated in one place — possibly several different places — and likely was treated with a variety of different pesticides in developing nations. The cotton may have been ginned and processed in Africa.

The textile mill where the denim was woven may have been in Turkey. The design may have come from the minds of professionals in Italy and the fabric cut in yet another distant location — Cambodia, perhaps. The finishing process may have occurred just across the border in Mexico. Perhaps you are a patriotic American shopper who looks for that "Made in the U.S.A." label. Unfortunately, what you think the label means and what it actually means may not be the same.

Twists, turns, intrigues …

If you want to get a handle on this mystery, check out Rachel Louise Snyder's "Fugitive Denim: A Moving Story of People and Pants in the Borderless World of Global Trade." Chances are, you'll never buy a pair of jeans again without recalling the amazing stories contained within her book. Snyder is an award-winning freelance investigative reporter whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Slate, and The New Republic, and on public radio's "This American Life" and "Marketplace."

She lives in Chicago, Cambodia and Washington, D.C. Her world travels have made her the perfect storyteller for this particular topic with its myriad twists, turns and international intrigues. The author explores the facts and fancy surrounding the ubiquitous garment — jeans — known and coveted worldwide for their durability, style and particular place as the indisputable icon of American consumerism.

And as varied as they are, from the $10 pair sold at Wal-Mart to the $2,000 items hanging in a Milan boutique, all have one feature in common: denim. (Those who think of jeans as a purely American artifact may be surprised to note that the word "denim" comes from the French phrase "de Nimes" — the mill town in Provence where the fabric was invented.) Snyder is the ideal storyteller, with her cosmopolitan background and engaging manner.

No armchair journalist, she delves into the lives of those for whom denim is their passion and/or their lifeline. When describing the work of the cotton pickers in Azerbaijan, she takes up a bag and interviews her subject while working alongside her. In the slums of Cambodia Snyder befriends two textile workers, eventually gaining access to their workplace and their sleeping quarters, and traveling to the country to visit their families.

No time for pity

There is no room for maudlin tales or self-pity in these women's lives. They have families to support and demanding jobs that leave them exhausted at the end of the day. Still, there are moments of laughter and surprise, little treats such as a Sunday afternoon walk in the sun, purchasing a hair ornament from a market stall — small things that help to give them a lift and a sense of pride in their ability to earn for themselves and their families.

In many of these textile factories, women are the sole providers and many take responsibility for sending their younger brothers and sisters to school — thus sparing them from a similar hard life. Snyder also spends time with mill owners, cotton growers and even designer-house "creatives." All have their good and bad moments and many are intriguing characters.

One thing they all share in common are worries about the globalization of trade and its effect on their particular little corner of the economic universe. While the author does a wonderful job of picking apart the convoluted tangle of international trade laws, it is still a difficult job for the reader to follow all the acronyms and timelines. Others who are better acquainted with the laws will understand; for the majority of us, it's enough to get the gist.

We understand, by the book's end, that everyone in the business — from the cotton growers to the textile workers to the chi-chi boutique buyers, are struggling to keep pace with the upheaval in their lives, the result of the ever-expanding global marketplace. For them, it's an edge-of-your-seat thrill ride every day as prices and policies change with the speed of a casino slot machine.

Denim facts:

• The global denim industry is a $55-billion business.
• Though cotton makes up only about 3 percent of our global agricultural land, it consumes nearly a quarter of the world's insecticides and 10 percent of the world's pesticides.
• The lengthwise yarn in weave is called the warp and the horizontal yarn, the weft. For denim destined for a standard pair of jeans, the warp yarn is dyed in enormous vats of indigo. The weft yarn is left undyed.
• Most jeans include washing or treating in chemical baths as part of the finishing process. This washing and finishing is the least environmentally friendly part of the entire manufacturing process.