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Ripped and Torn: Levi's, Latin America and the Blue Jean Dream
 
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Ripped and Torn: Levi's, Latin America and the Blue Jean Dream (Paperback)

by Amaranta Wright (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Ebury Press; New edition edition (1 Jun 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0091900840
  • ISBN-13: 978-0091900847
  • Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 12.6 x 2.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 719,161 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"Never preaching, always aware of why the individuals she meets are so ready to buy into the consumer dream, Wright details an unforgettable journey of personal discovery while exposing the nihilism which underwrites our global economy."
-"Independent on Sunday"
"The book's power comes from the sense that she dives straight in, that she wears the glad rags, pops the pills, dances the dances and loves the people she meets."
-"The Guardian"
"An intriguing read on the politics and passions of changing nations."
-"Sunday Times Travel Magazine" --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.


The Independent

‘A gripping, stirring trip’ --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.
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Customer Reviews

2 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, revealing but sometimes veers into tedium, 29 April 2007
By S. Yogendra "techstrategist" (UK) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)      
This review is from: Ripped and Torn: Levi's, Latin America and the Blue Jean Dream (Paperback)
Born in South America of parents, whose interest in the continent, went beyond the cursory, Amaranta Wright is a child of several cultures. Of her own admission, she feels South America beckoning and when Levi's offers her a 'job of a lifetime' involving what she thinks will be an all-expenses paid trip to the countries she always wanted to travel, she signs on. What follows is the story of her experiences with the youth of these countries and her search for pieces of their souls and their dreams, which she could then hand back over to Levi's so they could crunch it back into marketing speak and sell the dreams back to the South American youth.

Weaves paints word-portraits of the characters she meets both in South American and on her short trips back to the United States. One can visualise the landlord, the faded (lying, as they find later) star of Hollywood as well the boys who invite her to their ghetto for a party.

People from India, such as I am, are often inured to the gritty descriptions of poverty of the kind she writes. But having watched 'Cidade de Deus' without letting my inured brain to intervene, I was affected deeply by her descriptions. Hope is interwoven with dirt, grime and desperation but the tragedy is that this hope is being fed and watered only in the pursuit of profits, not so the youth could be truly lifted out of the hopelessness of their situation.

Wright's struggles with herself and her values while doing this 'job of a lifetime' are evident throughout the story, which makes it possible to finish the book, which sometimes rambles into tedium. Her devotion to South America is unfaltering, her writing style mostly conversational and never formal or pompous, her story telling vivid.

I read most of the book on airports, and travelling in blue denim jeans has not been the same since then.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic, 1 Oct 2006
By P. Duval "philip_duval" (Manchester UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
I read this book in a couple of days. It is so well written and the subject so interesting that I could not put it down. I am gojng to teach English in Colombia in a week's time (my first time in South America) and I am grateful for such a compassionate portrait of Latin America's nations and peoples.

The author got the 'job of a lifetime' - travelling around her favourite continent interviewing young people on behalf of Levi's jeans. Her brief was to find what made them tick in order that they could be sold consumer goods more easily.

Aside from the brilliant pictures she paints of the countries she visits and people she meets, it is also a story of how she became thoroughly disillusioned with her dream job and the corporation she was serving.

Amaranta Wright is deeply deeply passionate about her cause - social justice - and deeply hositle to the causes of injustice. Working inside the machine she gains some original insights on Western Corporatism and branding/consumerism.

It is a polemic and none the poorer for it.
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