A t-shirt that tells its story
What if every piece of clothing (or anything else) you bought was marked with a QR code that took you to information about who made it, how, where, and in what conditions? What if you could see every step of the production process and meet the people involved, from the farmworkers harvesting the cotton to the factory workers involved in the printing? It could empower people who want to further ethical goals with their purchasing decisions and inform debates about globalization and localism. It would also open up a depth of meaning for otherwise boring items and bring alive whole new worlds that you have a direct connection with.
Well, there is now one t-shirt available that aims to do that. Just go check it out. (The deadline for ordering is May 14.) The effort was inspired by a book called The Travels of a T-Shirt, written by an economist (but appreciated even by non-economists).
It’s unlikely we’ll ever have such QR codes on everything, and not only because companies usually don’t want us to see how the sausage is made. (Even fair trade certifiers face this temptation.) It’s just costly to keep track of all the information for a particular t-shirt (or whatever) and make it easily comprehensible. Making all of that knowledge actually enjoyable to take in is another layer of challenge. I’m guessing we may not want to pay for that for everything, but thanks, Pietra Rivoli and Planet Money, for this one.