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Worn Out: How Our Clothes Cover Up Fashion’s Sins
An insider’s look at how the rise of “fast fashion” obstructs ethical shopping and fuels the abuse and neglect of garment workers
“With years of expertise in the fashion industry, Alyssa’s reporting is consistently deep and thoughtful, and her work on sustainability and ethics has changed how I view the clothes I wear.”
—Brittney McNamara, features director at Teen Vogue
Ours is the era of fast a time of cheap and constantly changing styles for consumers of every stripe, with new clothing hitting the racks every season as social media–fueled tastes shift. Worn Out examines the underside of our historic clothing binge and the fashion industry’s fall from grace. Former InStyle senior news editor and seasoned journalist Alyssa Hardy’s riveting work explores the lives of the millions of garment workers—mostly women of color—who toil in the fashion industry around the world—from LA-based sweatshop employees who experience sexual abuse while stitching clothes for H&M, Fashion Nova, and Levi’s to “homeworkers” in Indonesia who are unknowingly given carcinogenic materials to work with. Worn Out exposes the complicity of celebrities whose endorsements obscure the exploitation behind marquee brands and also includes interviews with designers such as Mara Hoffman, whose business models are based on ethical production standards. Like many of us, Hardy believes in the personal, political, and cultural place fashion has in our lives, from seed to sew to closet, and that it is still okay to indulge in its glitz and glamour. But the time has come, she argues, to force real change on an industry that prefers to keep its dark side behind the runway curtain. The perfect book for people who are passionate about clothing and style, Worn Out seeks to engage in a real conversation about who gets harmed by fast fashion—and offers meaningful solutions for change.
“With years of expertise in the fashion industry, Alyssa’s reporting is consistently deep and thoughtful, and her work on sustainability and ethics has changed how I view the clothes I wear.”
—Brittney McNamara, features director at Teen Vogue
Ours is the era of fast a time of cheap and constantly changing styles for consumers of every stripe, with new clothing hitting the racks every season as social media–fueled tastes shift. Worn Out examines the underside of our historic clothing binge and the fashion industry’s fall from grace. Former InStyle senior news editor and seasoned journalist Alyssa Hardy’s riveting work explores the lives of the millions of garment workers—mostly women of color—who toil in the fashion industry around the world—from LA-based sweatshop employees who experience sexual abuse while stitching clothes for H&M, Fashion Nova, and Levi’s to “homeworkers” in Indonesia who are unknowingly given carcinogenic materials to work with. Worn Out exposes the complicity of celebrities whose endorsements obscure the exploitation behind marquee brands and also includes interviews with designers such as Mara Hoffman, whose business models are based on ethical production standards. Like many of us, Hardy believes in the personal, political, and cultural place fashion has in our lives, from seed to sew to closet, and that it is still okay to indulge in its glitz and glamour. But the time has come, she argues, to force real change on an industry that prefers to keep its dark side behind the runway curtain. The perfect book for people who are passionate about clothing and style, Worn Out seeks to engage in a real conversation about who gets harmed by fast fashion—and offers meaningful solutions for change.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published September 27, 2022
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2069 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
July 2, 2022
More Memoir Than Investigative Expose. At least for me, the current description as I write this review nearly three months before the book's scheduled publication reads more that this book would have been an investigative expose similar to Maxine Bedat's 2021 book Unraveled. And while many similar issues are discussed - from the rampant sex abuse in sweatshops to the mass markets in Africa where fast fashion castoffs that don't wind up in landfills ultimately wind up, among others - this is still mostly a memoir based narrative with some interviews to back up Hardy's own observations from her career in fashion. A career Hardy mentions a few times she left, and which becomes clear she is still processing her time within. Still, as a bit of an "insider's look" rather than active investigative journalism, this tale largely works and it does show a lot of the perils of the modern fast fashion industry. Indeed, the book really only suffers from two flaws: One is that it discusses COVID frequently, and I am on a one-man crusade against any book that mentions COVID for any reason at all. My only real tool in this crusade is a one-star deduction, and therefore it applies here. The second star deduction comes from the dearth of a bibliography. Even for similar memoir-based narratives and even with my extensive experience working with these narratives in advance reader copy form, the bibliography here is quite small, clocking in at just 2% or so of the text - when 10% is more normal even for this particular type of narrative, and 20-30% is more normal for nonfiction more generally. Still, for what it is and what it discusses, this book is well written and engaging (and a fairly quick read, for those looking for that), and is reasonably solid given the caveats above. Very much recommended.
September 18, 2022
I care a lot about ethical fashion — it’s something I have spent time learning about and enjoy sharing what I know with others. So when I saw this book coming out, I was hopeful about having a place to direct people who are interested in learning more. Ostensibly “an insider’s look at how the rise of fast fashion obstructs ethical shopping,” I found instead that this book fell short of presenting a thorough and cohesive story about the ills of fast fashion.
The author is a journalist with credentials from some big name outfits like InStyle. Unfortunately, the anecdotes she shares and the research she presents both have a shallow, myopic quality. While she names the main drawbacks of fast fashion (labor exploitation & environmental degradation), I did not find her writing to be undeveloped and a bit sophomoric.
A chapter that worked was the one that held the description’s promise: an insider look at how fashion journalism contributes to seasonal cycles and overconsumption. Hardy’s account confirmed a suspicion I had that fashion outlets are very heavily directed by marketing affiliate dollars not actual reporting.
That said, the book holistically did not live up to the expectations I would have a nonfiction title claiming to expose an industry’s dark side. However, I sincerely hope the topic continues to gain traction as it is extremely relevant.
The author is a journalist with credentials from some big name outfits like InStyle. Unfortunately, the anecdotes she shares and the research she presents both have a shallow, myopic quality. While she names the main drawbacks of fast fashion (labor exploitation & environmental degradation), I did not find her writing to be undeveloped and a bit sophomoric.
A chapter that worked was the one that held the description’s promise: an insider look at how fashion journalism contributes to seasonal cycles and overconsumption. Hardy’s account confirmed a suspicion I had that fashion outlets are very heavily directed by marketing affiliate dollars not actual reporting.
That said, the book holistically did not live up to the expectations I would have a nonfiction title claiming to expose an industry’s dark side. However, I sincerely hope the topic continues to gain traction as it is extremely relevant.
November 5, 2022
A thoroughly accessible account of how the fashion industry needs to do better in the areas of sustainability and worker ethics. Written by a fashion insider, this book covers a lot of information in a relatively short text (206 pages) which makes it a perfect entry point to those readers new to the topic of slow fashion and holding brands accountable for their actions. While some information is repetitive, I still recommend this book highly to anyone starting their journey into ditching fast fashion and spreading the word about researching brands before buying.
Source: Paper library copy
Source: Paper library copy
July 4, 2022
Back when I was pregnant with my daughter, I read Overdressed: The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline and was shocked by it. I had never really thought about clothing and the damage it does to the earth, and to the people who made it, before. The book was fascinating and needless to say, I haven’t looked at clothing the same way since. Browsing through NetGalley made me aware of the existence of Worn Out: How Our Clothes Cover Up Fashion’s Sins by Alyssa Hardy (New Press, 2022) and it got me wondering: what’s changed? How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the world of fashion? Has anything gotten any better? I hit the request button and was delighted to receive my acceptance just hours later. Huge thanks to NetGalley, Alyssa Hardy, and New Press for allowing me to read and review an early copy of Worn Out.
What happens to all our used clothes? We bag them up, drop them at Goodwill or another thrift store or bin, and then…what? Alyssa Hardy begins Worn Out with a bang, describing the secondhand markets in Ghana, where over fifteen million items of clothing, mostly from Europe and North America, end up. Western society is incredibly wasteful, habits that extend to our clothing usage as well, and this has not just ripple effects, but entire tsunami effects, around the world. Homegrown garment industries collapse because our garment industry overwhelms them. Children work these secondhand markets. Women die for low-paying garment factory jobs, as we saw in the Dhaka garment factory collapse in 2013, and for what? So we can buy an item of clothing made with such cheap materials that it falls apart in the wash within a few months. This has to stop, Alyssa Hardy argues, and she backs up her argument with devastating example after devastating example.
Beyond giving the fashion industry, from cotton field to salesroom floor, a hard look, Ms. Hardy turns her criticism on the fashion consumer. We’ve lost the inability to distinguish need from want, she points out, and in shying away or refusing to examine our lives and habits, we’ve created entire identities based on what we purchase, assigning ourselves in-group status based on what we wear. And in doing so, we’ve helped to create abhorrent conditions not only around the world, but in our very own backyards. American sweatshops exist. Women, who make up the majority of garment workers, make $4-6 per hour, working sixty-hour weeks. They’re sexually harassed and raped by the bosses who threaten to fire them if they speak up. Some make as little as $3.75 per day. “The bottom line is that we want too much at a cost that feels low but is expensive in other ways,” writes Ms. Hardy, and she’s correct. This is a mess that we as a society have created.
Worn Out is a reckoning for the fashion industry and the western consumer. From #metoo’s impact on the fashion industry as a whole, wage theft and wretched working conditions in garment factories around the world (such as Nike paying workers 12 cents per shoe, or Shein forcing 75-hour workweeks from their employees and having no emergency exits in their Chinese garment factories), the lack of inclusion in the fashion industry when it comes to plus-size and disabled models and thus lack of appropriate clothing for these groups, the damage done by influencers and what they should *really* be doing, the use of forced Uyghur labor (about one-fifth of all cotton garments around the world contain material from the Uyghur region in China; odds are, something in your closet was made by Uyghur slave labor), the environmental cost of the industry, Alyssa Hardy shines a light on it all. It’s not all hopeless, though; there are steps we can take, she tells us, to force the industry’s hand…but it’s not going to be easy, and it may be more collective effort than we have in us.
An incredible book that will change the way you shop. Read it; live it; tell your friends. Garment workers around the world deserve a better life, and only we as consumers can help make that a reality if we push the fashion industry, hard.
What happens to all our used clothes? We bag them up, drop them at Goodwill or another thrift store or bin, and then…what? Alyssa Hardy begins Worn Out with a bang, describing the secondhand markets in Ghana, where over fifteen million items of clothing, mostly from Europe and North America, end up. Western society is incredibly wasteful, habits that extend to our clothing usage as well, and this has not just ripple effects, but entire tsunami effects, around the world. Homegrown garment industries collapse because our garment industry overwhelms them. Children work these secondhand markets. Women die for low-paying garment factory jobs, as we saw in the Dhaka garment factory collapse in 2013, and for what? So we can buy an item of clothing made with such cheap materials that it falls apart in the wash within a few months. This has to stop, Alyssa Hardy argues, and she backs up her argument with devastating example after devastating example.
Beyond giving the fashion industry, from cotton field to salesroom floor, a hard look, Ms. Hardy turns her criticism on the fashion consumer. We’ve lost the inability to distinguish need from want, she points out, and in shying away or refusing to examine our lives and habits, we’ve created entire identities based on what we purchase, assigning ourselves in-group status based on what we wear. And in doing so, we’ve helped to create abhorrent conditions not only around the world, but in our very own backyards. American sweatshops exist. Women, who make up the majority of garment workers, make $4-6 per hour, working sixty-hour weeks. They’re sexually harassed and raped by the bosses who threaten to fire them if they speak up. Some make as little as $3.75 per day. “The bottom line is that we want too much at a cost that feels low but is expensive in other ways,” writes Ms. Hardy, and she’s correct. This is a mess that we as a society have created.
Worn Out is a reckoning for the fashion industry and the western consumer. From #metoo’s impact on the fashion industry as a whole, wage theft and wretched working conditions in garment factories around the world (such as Nike paying workers 12 cents per shoe, or Shein forcing 75-hour workweeks from their employees and having no emergency exits in their Chinese garment factories), the lack of inclusion in the fashion industry when it comes to plus-size and disabled models and thus lack of appropriate clothing for these groups, the damage done by influencers and what they should *really* be doing, the use of forced Uyghur labor (about one-fifth of all cotton garments around the world contain material from the Uyghur region in China; odds are, something in your closet was made by Uyghur slave labor), the environmental cost of the industry, Alyssa Hardy shines a light on it all. It’s not all hopeless, though; there are steps we can take, she tells us, to force the industry’s hand…but it’s not going to be easy, and it may be more collective effort than we have in us.
An incredible book that will change the way you shop. Read it; live it; tell your friends. Garment workers around the world deserve a better life, and only we as consumers can help make that a reality if we push the fashion industry, hard.
September 27, 2022
I wish I had read this book sooner. It's packed with information and very well-structured. I wouldn't say the topics explored in Worn Out are basics, the 101 knowledge, but even so, I felt like it was perfect as a beginner's guide into the problems of the fashion industry. I appreciated that the author didn't only rely on her own experience in the fashion business to explain the many issues we are currently facing, but made sure to include the stories of other people, from company owners, to models and especially to the underpaid workers who make the actual pieces of clothing. There was also a commendable effort to talk about the fashion industry problems in an international perspective, including people from different countries and cultures into her interviews. This in particular won me over. Worn Out is a very important book, about topics we should all be reflecting on. I will certainly keep this in my shelves.
July 21, 2022
*I received a copy of this book on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for this opportunity*
WORN OUT is an "Insider's Look" into the world behind the glossy magazines and mindless online shopping. This book, not exactly a hard-hitting expose but definitely eye opening for anyone not intimately involved in the fashion industry.
Most cosumers are aware of the issues with fast-fashion: including, but not limited to: worker explotation, waste creation, diversity inclusion/exclusion, counterfiets, greenwashing, and slave use. All of these topics (and more) are explored in WORN OUT-- mostly through personal commentary and anecdotes, interview material collected by the author, and examples found in popular culture.
This book is not meant to, in my opinion, offer any previously unknown facts-- but instead acts as a looking glass to which the common western consumer can look at the mess their consumption has caused. But it's not all doom and gloom, Alyssa Harding provides some options for the everyday person, as well as the corporation and designers, to improving our practices.
WORN OUT is an "Insider's Look" into the world behind the glossy magazines and mindless online shopping. This book, not exactly a hard-hitting expose but definitely eye opening for anyone not intimately involved in the fashion industry.
Most cosumers are aware of the issues with fast-fashion: including, but not limited to: worker explotation, waste creation, diversity inclusion/exclusion, counterfiets, greenwashing, and slave use. All of these topics (and more) are explored in WORN OUT-- mostly through personal commentary and anecdotes, interview material collected by the author, and examples found in popular culture.
This book is not meant to, in my opinion, offer any previously unknown facts-- but instead acts as a looking glass to which the common western consumer can look at the mess their consumption has caused. But it's not all doom and gloom, Alyssa Harding provides some options for the everyday person, as well as the corporation and designers, to improving our practices.
November 4, 2022
Hardy cares passionately about her subject and writes revealingly about the dark underside of the fashion industry. One does tend to think of sweatshops in different eras and different countries, how shocking to learn that the big names turn a blind eye to labor conditions in which their contractors allow workers to suffer. Appalling. We love beautiful clothes, a cute sweater, new stuff, but at what cost? The book starts to feel as if it is going around in circles, however, and Hardy doesn't seem to know what to do--a lot of anecdotes, a lot of information is pushed at the reader, but what now? We praise her for daring to leave her high powered job, for speaking the truth about how clothes and products really get sold. An intriguing read, fairly brief, and a good introduction to the crisis. Adult, teen.
October 20, 2023
Yes to this complicated conversation around what we wear and who makes it. Super recommend!
November 9, 2025
Learned a lot about the fashion industry
August 14, 2022
Worn Out by Alyssa Hardy offers an update on the ethical problems of fast fashion and overconsumption of apparel in general, as well as the many shortcomings of fashion as an industry. She covers the usual gamut of human rights abuses in the garment industry, though with a useful greater than normal emphasis on U.S. domestic issue, as well as environmental issues, from the resources involved in apparel production to the myth that we can actually dispose of our garment glut. What is new is attention to the role played by Covid (including the way in which labor exploitation simply carried over to mask-making), the role of celebrity endorsers/labels and Instagram in general (e.g., encouraging “hauls” by everyday people and the ridiculous notion of “influencers” who constantly consume in order to generate more and more ridiculous content for their ridiculous posts), and the consequences of Prime Day and Black Friday. The most interesting parts to me were attention to the long overlooked flaws in the fashion industry itself (lack of diversity, rampant #MeToo issues) and a discussion of the various harms involved in the market for counterfeit goods. In short, I learned a few things, which, frankly, surprised me given the number of books like this I have read. Worn Out is a valuable addition to books on consumer ethics. Buyer beware (or better yet, be self-aware).
November 6, 2022
I found this book very insightful and a wake up call to how we view the clothing industry. It was especially enlightening to learn about the “Made in US” garment factories, because until this point I have always thought that something made in the US immediately made it more ethically/sustainably made. Additionally, I found the Xinjiang cotton industry section very interesting as I didn’t know much about the issue. Another reminder that just because something was made with cotton instead of synthetics, it doesn’t make it ethically sourced.
I did notice that there were some issues/sectors of the fashion industry that Hardy mentioned occasionally but never went into detail on, and wished she had. For example, not much was included on raw material works (other than the cotton section stated above), what synthetic materials are and why they are bad, and what toxic chemicals are used in the clothing/processing (think only one specific one mentioned). Also the landfill and groundwater contamination references. Maybe it’s just my environmental engineering brain, but I was hoping for more specifics on these. I felt these items would’ve been beneficial to include instead of just mentioned.
Will be checking out Good On You!
I did notice that there were some issues/sectors of the fashion industry that Hardy mentioned occasionally but never went into detail on, and wished she had. For example, not much was included on raw material works (other than the cotton section stated above), what synthetic materials are and why they are bad, and what toxic chemicals are used in the clothing/processing (think only one specific one mentioned). Also the landfill and groundwater contamination references. Maybe it’s just my environmental engineering brain, but I was hoping for more specifics on these. I felt these items would’ve been beneficial to include instead of just mentioned.
Will be checking out Good On You!
June 3, 2023
I gave this book three stars because I felt it was just ok. While I do believe ethical fashion is important and have started to take steps to buy clothing that will last longer, steer clear of unnecessary animal products, and buy from companies that treat their workers better, if I hadn't already read a great deal on this subject I doubt this book would have caused me to take any action. She gave lots of facts, but they didn't make me feel anything. I never really felt the true pain of any of the workers and didn't get to know who they were on a deeper level. She also touched on some issues I felt may have been more relevant to younger readers, like caring about and being influenced by what celebrities were wearing and keeping up with trends. I did like that she included the app Good on You to give readers ethical ratings on various companies. I just wish I could find sustainable options on the app in the United States. I would have liked some suggestions on where we could find these from the author, if they even exist.
July 21, 2024
This book provided insight into the clothing supply chain. I hadn't heard about some of the stories in the news before. There is so much more we could be doing and this book was a good start to get us to think about the issues across the globe. It was published in 2022 and provides a glimpse into what happened during the pandemic.
October 22, 2025
I think this book is a good introduction for anyone wondering what is going on "behind the scenes in fashion". Overall, I do feel there is some rigor missing and things are phrased a bit differently "simple", I think I would have enjoyed more in-depth perspectives of the author at times. Especially the personal testimonies felt a bit shallow.
September 28, 2022
Such an illuminating read. Hardy gives a voice to the most valuable and least valued members of the fashion industry, telling the ugly story behind our clothes with both candid interviews and insightful anecdotes from her own experiences. This is required reading for any and every consumer.
March 3, 2024
I really enjoyed this book. I thought it was interesting, especially considering she used to be a Vogue editor. I think that I would share this with anyone interested in fast fashion, but also who has a sense of humor.
August 16, 2022
Wow--everyone should read this book! This is an easy to read, eye-opening account of the human toll of fast fashion. Highly recommended. I found this book more accessible than "Fashionopolis."
December 1, 2022
amazing—comprehensive, disturbing, and an excellent call to action from a fashion journalist who’s demanding companies do better
January 9, 2023
Interesting, mostly anecdotal. A quick read.
August 4, 2024
Important info but hard to get through - kind of boring
January 18, 2023
If you’ve done any reading on scandals within the fashion industry, this book won’t necessarily be hard-hitting. In my opinion, Alyssa Hardy’s book reads more like a memoir than a work of investigative journalism. That said, its contents are still very insightful - and Hardy’s perspective (as a former fashion editor) is appreciated.
She breaks down the cultural and political aspects of fashion within our culture in a way that’s easily digestible. Hardy touches on a variety of topics ranging from celebrity/influencer marketing and greenwashing to labor injustice and sexual harassment. Altogether a worthwhile read.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an arc of Worn Out in exchange for an honest review.
She breaks down the cultural and political aspects of fashion within our culture in a way that’s easily digestible. Hardy touches on a variety of topics ranging from celebrity/influencer marketing and greenwashing to labor injustice and sexual harassment. Altogether a worthwhile read.
Thank you NetGalley for providing me with an arc of Worn Out in exchange for an honest review.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews