Join us on Wednesday, October 13th, 2021 at 6pm to hear upcoming speaker Virginia Postrel discuss her new book The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World. This event, hosted by the Consumer, Apparel, and Retail Studies (CARS) department in partnership with the White Oak Legacy Foundation, will be held in the Atrium at Revolution Mill in Greensboro, NC. The event is free and open to the public.
Author Virginia Postrel’s new book explores the global history of textiles and the world they weave together. In this discussion, Postrel uses groundbreaking research to show how the history of textile’s innovations in fiber, spinning, weaving, and dyeing relate to the advancement of civilization’s technology, business, politics, and culture throughout time.
Virginia Postrel is an award winning, LA based writer whose previous works include The Power of Glamour (Simon & Schuster, 2013), The Substance of Style (2003), and The Future and Its Enemies (1998). She currently works as a columnist for Bloomsberg Opinion and serves as a Visiting Professor at Smith Institute for Political Economy and Philosophy at Chapman University in Orange, California. Postrel also learned how to weave during her research for The Fabric of Civilization and is now the program co-chair for the Southern California Handweavers’ Guild. After graduation from Princeton University in 1982, where she combined a major in English literature and Economics, she began her career as a reporter in the Philadelphia bureau of The Wall Street Journal before moving on to Inc in Boston and Reason in Los Angeles. Her most recent book is an enthralling and educational guide to the story of humanity through textiles.
The CARS department is co-sponsoring the event in partnership with White Oak Legacy Foundation (WOLF), a Greensboro non-profit organization working to preserve the history and heritage of denim and jean manufacturing in the Southern United States. The Foundation’s focus is on education, history, production of authentic fabrics and innovation. WOLF is also hosting a pop-up history exhibit called Innovations in Blue that will be on display from October 10, 2021 through March 31, 2022. This exhibit will be featured during the Author Spotlight with Virginia Postrel and can be viewed for free by the public at Revolution Mill.
Find out more about Virginia Postrel’s Author Spotlight and other opportunities through White Oak Legacy Foundation at https://www.wolfdenim.org/events
