This book brings together contributors from a wide range of disciplines to explore the importance of cotton as a major resource for US fashion businesses. Rooted in a lengthy investigative
research project that deployed undergraduate and graduate students and faculty researchers to US fashion businesses that rely on cotton to make their garments—with the goal of better
understanding how such a key resource is sourced, priced, transported, manipulated, and, ultimately, sold on to the consumer as a stylish garment. The contributors focus in particular on the
role of brands in the marketing of cotton goods, and the way that brand marketing creates distinctions, valuable in the marketplace, between various versions of what are at base similar items
of clothing, like t-shirts and underclothes. The book also explores the importance of the “Made in the USA” campaign, with its appeal to consumer concerned about local manufacturing
employment, reduced resource use, and social responsibility.
