Oh, great to see this mentioned here. The podcast are great, although I have not listened to this one. The one about zippers was very entertaining. She also has a series about the interdependence between military and outdoor garment industry. Great stuff!
Re:Lace and Labor
by azath92 on Monday October 05, 2026 @08:25AM
(#49963940)
Echoing the sentiment about this podcast in general. Its fantastic for well researched, tightly focused deep dives on some fascinating topics in fashion and fashion history. There are a couple of seasons that are long form one topic over the whole season, and a couple that are self contained episodic. Both formats are excellent, but for obvious reasons the self contained ones are a great way to pick one that grabs your fancy and see if its for you!
Based on an interview with Brain Merchant (author of a book about the Luddites called Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech). His blog gets submitted to HN periodically:
Re:Lace and Labor
by js2 on Monday October 05, 2026 @03:47PM
(#49969676)
Now having listened to both episodes:
The 99% Invisible episode is all about the Luddite movement.
The Lace and Labor episode talks primarily about the history of crochet and its relationship to labor, with a detour through knitting, after a brief introduction to the Luddite movement.
https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/552-blood-in-the-mach...
Based on an interview with Brain Merchant (author of a book about the Luddites called Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech). His blog gets submitted to HN periodically:
https://news.ycombinator.com/from?site=bloodinthemachine.com
Notable discussion a few weeks ago:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49470380
The 99% Invisible episode is all about the Luddite movement.
The Lace and Labor episode talks primarily about the history of crochet and its relationship to labor, with a detour through knitting, after a brief introduction to the Luddite movement.
The episodes are complementary.