Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • We Are What We Wear

  • Unravelling Fast Fashion and the Collapse of Rana Plaza
  • By: Lucy Siegle
  • Narrated by: Susan Duerden
  • Length: 1 hr and 38 mins
  • 3.9 out of 5 stars (30 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

We Are What We Wear

By: Lucy Siegle
Narrated by: Susan Duerden
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £2.99

Buy Now for £2.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

Fashion is many things. It is self-expression, big business, trend-setting, a lifestyle choice. But however you see fashion, it relies on one simple characteristic: the incredible speed with which clothes make their journey from the drawing board to the High Street hanger. Fashion is fast. Fast fashion influences the types of garments we have in our wardrobes. It also describes the complex, multi-national supply chain that links the shirt on your back to the crowded, creaking factories in the world’s slums where clothes are made by a workforce numbering in the tens of millions. The manufacturing pressures that come from our deep love of incredibly cheap, incredibly current fashions were shot to global attention in 2013 when the Rana Plaza building in Dhaka, Bangladesh's capital city, collapsed in a cascade of tumbling rubble, twisted metal and trapped bodies. Over 1,100 people died, mainly young women.

We Are What We Wear is the story of what happened in Bangladesh and how fast fashion has grown to become the giant that it is today. The intimate accounts from the survivors of the collapse are mixed with an exploration of the history of fast fashion and of how the High Street both fuels and satisfies our every fashion wish. Award-winning reporter Jason Burke picks his way through the day of the collapse, while fashion and consumer expert Lucy Siegle looks at what has happened since - and what needs to happen next.

©2014 Lucy Siegle, The Guardian (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Foot Work cover art
Poorly Made in China cover art
Cities Are Good for You cover art
Masters of Enterprise cover art
The Next Factory of the World cover art
Breaking Rockefeller cover art
Disrobed cover art
Underdog Thinking cover art
No Place to Go: Scenes from Ghana's Sanitation Crisis cover art
"We Are All Fast-Food Workers Now" cover art
A World Made for Money: Economy, Geography, and the Way We Live Today cover art
Junkyard Planet cover art
Gain cover art
Everybody Loves a Good Drought cover art
The Big Necessity cover art
Trust cover art

What listeners say about We Are What We Wear

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    13
  • 4 Stars
    5
  • 3 Stars
    9
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    2
Performance
  • 3 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    9
  • 4 Stars
    4
  • 3 Stars
    4
  • 2 Stars
    3
  • 1 Stars
    7
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    16
  • 4 Stars
    7
  • 3 Stars
    3
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Difficult to listen to

An interesting book but unfortunately the narrator makes it extremely difficult to listen to. While her voice is very clear she delivers every sentence like a commercial one-liner (think of those upbeat voice overs on teenage clothes adverts) which is exhausting and frustrating to listen to. I also found the voices given to victims’ quotes very grating. I’m sorry to leave a negative review but it might be best to read, rather than listen to, this one.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

great and great for length

i feel the complainants about tone arent needed for a short like this its not noticeable. the language she use is far more picture painting for other books in this genre

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Poor narration for such an important story

I was interested to learn more about fast fashion and the issues faced by workers in Bangladesh, but the narration was an insult to the stories being told.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Good book bad narrations

This book will make you think, understand and feel the fast fashion from scratch. Though as like all other books on contemporary topics, it doesnt suggest any solution or whatsoever. Still, I enjoyed the chain breaking feeling of my imagination.

But the narration was so bad, that created a headache.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Great book, awful narration.

I have no idea why someone actually chose to have this narrator. It takes away from the story and makes it an effort to listen to, rather than the important read it should be. The robotic tone and inappropriate intonation annoyed me so much that I could only listen in small chunks. Then to find out this isn’t the writer, it’s someone they chose to read it! Craziness. For the authors sake, please re record it!
I advise you to buy the physical book and read it rather than purchase on audible.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Who is she speaking like that?

I’m certain the narrator doesn’t speak like this on a daily basis…so why is she putting on this weird voice for narration? It is awful. Couldn’t get further than about 15mins in🤷🏻‍♀️

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    2 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Wish I'd bought it in print form

The content was quite interesting but unfortunately the narration completely ruined the experience for me. Tone was dull and machine-like, making the article really boring to listen to and the content difficult to focus on. My first purchase on Audible and disappointed.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

  • Overall
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    1 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Awful narration

This narrator is dreadful. Such a shame. As it’s such an interesting story and worth hearing.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!