My life is covered in tiny bits of thread

Welcome to Digital Seam Ripper

Hey everybody! There comes a time in a woman’s life when she must face her destiny: it is time to start an email newsletter. Welcome to Digital Seam Ripper. I’ll be writing about the intersections of clothing production and technology. This subject holds particular interest for me because it sits at the crossroads of (a) my career as a software engineer (b) my extra-curricular interest in making, wearing, and yapping about clothing, and (c) my education in the arts and humanities that leads me to believe that everything, everything, everything is connected.

With the rapid acceleration of generative AI in the last few years, many have been drawing parallels between our current era and the early industrial revolution, which began in the textile trades. In both cases, new technology had profound impacts on labor, gender roles, and our relationship to the environment.

I chose the seam ripper as my mascot because it is a deconstructive tool. If you found your way here through my sewing content, you know exactly what a seam ripper is and I don’t need to tell you. But if you don’t know, it’s a stabby little guy that’s used to rip out stitches. You can get one for less than $10 and it is pretty much ESSENTIAL if you are sewing your own clothes. It looks like this:

My seam ripper.

The seam ripper is a tool you use when something has gone wrong. It is a sharp tool, a tool of anger, a tool for going back and retracing your steps to figure out where you messed up. It covers your life in fine pieces of thread that will clog your vacuum and end up in your hair, on your clothes, in your mouth, in your dreams.

You can also use a seam ripper to take things apart and see how they were made. And that’s what I hope to do in this newsletter: to rip apart textile and industrial history to see how our modern technical and fashion landscapes came to be. I want to explore these topics because I have questions—so many questions!

Questions like, what do today’s big tech CEOs have in common with the textile magnates of the early 1800s? Why do we have country of origin labels in our clothes and how much do they still really tell us about the ethics and supply chains behind what we buy? What are the most interesting things happening in Portland’s garment production scene? How did the invention of artificial textile dyes impact how we think about color?

I have concrete plans to answer some of these in short researched essays. As to the others, why don’t you stick around and see what happens? I’m glad you’re here. Let’s rip shit up!

Other housekeeping notes:

• I haven’t monetized this newsletter and have no immediate plans to do so. For now my goal is to publish at least monthly, but if I find I’m publishing more frequently and spending a lot of time on it I may consider turning on subscription features.

• I plan to share updates on my own adventures in making here as well, so stay tuned for sewing dispatches!