Kelsey Timmerman

This likable book tells the story of man who wanted to know where his clothes came from. Was afraid he would come off preachy but it came out quite balanced and likable.

It gives you pause to think that forbidding child labor could actually be a BAD thing. Imagine if your other choices were begging or digging around toxic garbage dumps for anything to sell.

I appreciate Kelsey's courage to embark on this quest of finding his clothes origins. And also thank him for making at least this reader a little more mindful of his clothing choices.… (meer)

What It Lacks in Detail, It Makes Up for in Readability

"Where am I Wearing" is Kelsey Timmerman's attempt to locate the people who made his five favorite articles of clothing. Timmerman goes to great lengths throughout the book to be ambivalent about the morality of sweatshops and buying from cheap overseas labor, but his incongruous conclusion to the book preaches "buy American." Timmerman's writing is humorous and casual, so the book goes very, very quickly. It's one of the quickest reads I've had in a long time.

Timmerman remains more of a tourist than an investigative journalist. He meets a small handful of workers and takes them to lunch or out for a fun evening. He talks with them and inquires about their life stories. He is even able to follow two of them to their home villages in Cambodia and China, where he learns that the workers in garment factories are supporting families in the country. Timmerman does not spend much time in the factories themselves, except in Bangladesh where he is "tricked" by a translator into posing as a buyer, and in the United States, where a factory in New York welcomes him with open arms.

Throughout the book, he makes the point that people working in these factories work long hours in grueling jobs for what anyone in the West would consider a paltry salary. Still, that paltry salary is slightly better than what they would be making elsewhere, especially in the provinces. It is therefore difficult to demonize these factories by calling them sweatshops, despite the fact that they would be called as such by anyone in the West. Still, in the end, Timmerman's only call to action is to "buy American."

Timmerman does a casual job describing the supply chain, sufficient enough for this book. Brands headquartered in Los Angeles place orders for the factories and occasionally make forays to consider, however briefly, the conditions in which their sourced labor works. Had the book a more serious tone, Timmerman could have explained this in more depth.

The book is breezy. Many of the chapters are less than eight pages long. It is stretched with fun anecdotes about Timmerman, his fiance, his job as a SCUBA instructor, and his life growing up in Ohio. This makes "Where am I Wearing" relaxing and fast. Here and there, he points to a report from a non-governmental organization, but he seems to avoid this in favor of the lighter tone.

I would have preferred something more serious, a little more in-depth. I would have liked to read more interviews and received more information about how well-off garment workers are when compared to the rest of their nation's workers. Nevertheless, the book worked and matched Timmerman's fun style to a tee.… (meer)