From Cargo to Couture

A Patek Philippe watch and a bulk cargo of fertilizer cross the same ocean, clear the same customs desks, pass through the same banks and insurers, and depend on the same global infrastructure. Only the story attached to them differs.

From Cargo to Couture follows the hidden journey behind the things we need, wear and desire. From a cocoa farm in Cote dIvoire to a Geneva freeport, from a tannery in Tuscany to an auction house, from a Tehran pharmacy navigating sanctions to a Beirut grocers shelf, it traces the people, paperwork, money and decisions that move goods across borders.

Traders, chartering clerks, customs declarants, hide graders, watchmakers and others reveal a world in which luxury and necessity are far more closely connected than they appear. The same ports, freight networks, insurers, banks and commercial systems that move everyday commodities also help bring leather, watches, fashion and other objects of desire to market. Along the way, the book explores how value is created, transferred and sometimes faked.

Written from practical experience of the freight, trading, insurance and documentation networks behind physical commerce, From Cargo to Couture offers a view of the global value chain from an unusual angle. It closes by looking at the technologies now making that chain more visible - satellite tracking, digital product passports and carbon accounting - and asks us to look differently at the ordinary and extraordinary objects in our hands: both are visible ends of journeys that stretch across oceans.