HALF-BURIED in the Guardian in late January last year was a “long read” entitled Behind the Label. It was an edited extract from Worn: A People’s History of Clothing by Sofi Thanhauser.   

This extract — though you might not guess it from the title — is lucidly revealing and insightful about the workings of post-colonial, globalised, neoliberal imperialism with regard to textile production and trade between the Caribbean Basin and the US from the 1980s onwards.  

One outcome of the changes that had taken place is illustrated by the fact that 40 per cent of all clothing bought in the US in 1997 had been produced at home, while in 2012 the figure was less than 3 per cent.