Journalist Wicker exposes the fashion industry’s use of toxic chemicals in To Dye For (Putnam, June).
You write that beauty companies have started to move toward making “cleaner” products, while the same isn’t true for fashion companies. Why is that?
The huge difference is that clothes don’t come with an ingredients list. So even if you know you’re allergic to something, like a certain dye, you wouldn’t know what it’s in. I think most people aren’t even aware there are chemicals in their clothes. They look at a white T-shirt and they think it’s just cotton—it says 100% cotton on the label. But in fact fashion involves extremely complex chemistry, and I think there are even very few professionals who understand the full danger of what’s on our clothing.
What segments of society does this issue tend to affect?
This has always been a garment worker problem, but it’s also a women’s problem. The chemicals in clothing, like certain dyes, are closely linked to autoimmune disease, which affects women more often than men, and fertility problems, also seen as a women’s issue. I think there’s a lot of sexism wrapped up in telling women that their health problems are all in their heads, and this falls into that category. Also, it’s often mothers who have to be detectives and figure out why their children have allergies or skin problems caused by clothes. And fashion is generally seem as a dumb women’s thing. On the other side of it, most of the people in the textile industry with the power to effect change are men.
Can you talk about why the medical system isn’t set up to recognize these chemical intolerances?
It’s an extremely complex issue. You can have a skin reaction from something that touched you several days ago, and it might last for over a week. Since most people wear something different every day, they may not be able to trace the reaction back to a piece of clothing—if they even think about it as a possibility. But when multiple airlines issued new uniforms that caused health problems, a number of flight attendants were able to figure out the culprit.
Did your ideas for the book evolve as you worked on it?
As I researched, the book grew to be about more than just fashion. Fashion is my way in and I hope it is for readers, too. But this is about the under-regulation of chemicals, which are also in our home products and packaging and can cause complex health issues. So the book is not only for people who care about fashion or sustainability, it’s for anyone who’s struggling with mysterious chronic health problems. I think anybody will find something here to help them better manage their health.
