Chatter: Fabric, Dyes, Glamour, and International Affairs, with Virginia Postrel
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.4K Ratings
🗓️ 18 April 2024
⏱️ 91 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Author and speaker Virginia Postrel has spent many years researching and writing about, among other things, various aspects of the economics and societal context of fashion, glamour, and consumer choice. A few years ago her book The Fabric of Civilization tackled the history and global effects of fabric-making, dyeing, the clothing trade, and other textile-related activities. So when host David Priess had his curiosity piqued by some displays at the International Spy Museum related to silk, dyes, and espionage, he knew who to call.
David talked to Virginia about the origins of string and of fabric, togas in fiction and reality, the value of purple in the Roman Empire, the importance of fabrics for outfitting armies and making warships' sails, the development of weaving, how textile merchants led to the modern political economy, Jakob Fugger, Chinese silk and espionage, Spain's 200 year monopoly on vibrant reds, efforts to steal Spain' cochineal secret, the long history of indigo, French efforts to steal Indian indigo, the invention of synthetic dyes, modern sneaker culture and conceptions of value, Jackie Kennedy, fashion and glamour on the world stage today, and more.
Among the works mentioned in this episode:
- The book The Fabric of Civilization by Virginia Postrel
- The TV show The Vikings
- The Chatter podcast episode Private Sector Intelligence with Lewis Sage-Passant, June 9, 2022
- Virginia Postrel's YouTube channel
- The book The Power of Glamour by Virginia Postrel
- The Star Wars prequel movies
- The TV show Game of Thrones
- The TV show The Regime
- The article "Trump isn't just campaigning; He's selling his supporters a glamorous life" by Virginia Postrel, Washington Post, March 18, 20
- The movie The Hunger Games
- The book The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
- The book Fifth Sun by Camilla Townsend
Chatter is a production of Lawfare and Goat Rodeo. This episode was produced and edited by Cara Shillenn of Goat Rodeo. Podcast theme by David Priess, featuring music created using Groovepad.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The following podcast contains advertising. |
| 0:04.0 | To access an ad-free version of the Lawfair Podcast, |
| 0:08.0 | become a material supporter of Lawfair at Patreon.com slash Lawfair. That's Patreon.com |
| 0:16.4 | slash Lawfair. Also check out Lawfair's other podcast offerings, rational security, chatter, lawfare no bull, and the aftermath. |
| 0:30.0 | Welcome to Chatter. I'm David Priest. This week, author and glamor expert Virginia |
| 0:37.9 | Pastrel on fabrics, dies, glamour, and international affairs. |
| 0:45.0 | Glamour is very fragile and politically glamour obscures difficulties |
| 0:52.0 | that obscures flaws I mean there was a lot about the |
| 0:55.1 | Kennedy's that was not public. It's very hard to maintain in the political |
| 1:01.8 | world. |
| 1:03.0 | A lot of textile innovation today |
| 1:06.0 | takes place generally in the performance area |
| 1:11.0 | that is athletic wear, outdoor wear, military wear. |
| 1:17.0 | We live in the society where, I mean, yes, there are curturets, but most of us dress fairly, similarly, regardless of social class, |
| 1:31.0 | because the textiles and the clothing are abundant. |
| 1:35.0 | Virginia, welcome to Chatter. |
| 1:43.0 | Thanks, thanks for having me. |
| 1:45.0 | You don't know this, but I've wanted to talk to you for a long time because I'm aware of some of your earlier writings, but I had kind of a weird feeling with something |
| 1:58.0 | that I've seen repeatedly at the International Spy Museum, which sounds like a weird avenue into some of your writings, but bear with me. |
| 2:07.5 | There at the International Spy Museum, in addition to all the stuff you would expect, so technology about how to break into various |
| 2:16.2 | facilities and disguises and stories of espionage in history, there is a display that talks about fabrics and dies. |
| 2:26.5 | It talks about red dye from Mexico, I believe, and the Dutch trying to get the secrets of it. It talks about |
... |
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