Sofi

Thanhauser

Writer & Artist

Teacher & Musician

Travels from: Brooklyn, NY

“Luminous… Thanhauser emphasizes the experience of workers, usually women, who are enmeshed in lucrative global industries linked to textiles and clothing…A knowledgeable and fascinating book…that bulges at the seams with finely spun descriptions of the people and places she encounters.” — The Economist

Sofi Thanhauser is a writer, artist, and musician, based in Brooklyn. She is the author of Worn: A People’s History of Clothing (Pantheon, January 2022). Her writing has appeared in the MIT Technology Review, American Craft, Vox, The Guardian, Observer Magazine, Dame, and LitHub, among other publications. She is a 2024 Climate Works Fellow, and she has received fellowships from the Fulbright, Yaddo, Macdowell, Ucross, VCCA, Jentel, and Millay. Sofi is also a 2025 Whiting Award Winner in Nonfiction.

She has appeared on the Articles of Interest Podcast, Al Jazeera English, WNYC, the Pre-Loved Podcast With Emily Stochl, BBC Radio 6, KERA Think, BBC Sounds, and AirTalk. She was the keynote speaker at both the Cannabis Research Conference at CSU Pueblo in Denver, CO, and at “Evolving Textiles Conference: Materializing the Future” at NC State University in Raleigh, NC. She has given talks at Mana Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ, at the Eastern Sociological Society 2018 Annual Meeting, Baltimore, MD, and at the Annual National Women’s Studies Convention in Atlanta, GA.

She teaches in the Writing Department at Pratt Institute, in Brooklyn. She is currently at work on her second nonfiction book, forthcoming from Riverhead Books.

Sofi's Featured Titles

Wearing History

What can we learn about history by simply looking closely at our clothing? The country of manufacture and fiber content are listed, but what about the deeper histories: of women’s work, colonization, technological advances, water, and climate? This talk helps provide a big history of clothing that will help connect us to global histories, and help envision where we, and clothing, can go next.

Research as a Dance

Researching a book-length work of non-fiction sometimes means walking long distances in the dark. This talk will explore the research process as an enlivening and frightening engagement with the unknown. It will place the field of contemporary non-fiction alongside other literary and cinematic projects and offer some useful strategies for blending rigor with playfulness and ease.

What is to be done?

This talk looks at some of the major questions that come up when we think about how to build a sustainable textile industry, based on lessons learned through history. It looks at the future of hemp production in the U.S., legislation efforts in Europe and the U.S., the work of unions in Bangladesh, and in small- production pratices in communities around the U.S and around the world.

“We loved working with Sofi, she was very easy going and a team player. Everybody loved her presentation and her energy. She also stuck around throughout the day and even enjoyed dinner and party time with us. We truly loved having her as part of our conference.” —Garson & Shaw, 2025

“A project epic in the depth and scope of its research…Thanhauser’s thesis, one which she proves repeatedly, is that the story of fabric is “charged with political meaning”…Worn is both a historical examination, and a clarion call to wake up to the human rights abuses of the textile industry…leavened by the author’s passion for her subject, and her ability to weave its many strands together like a beautiful piece of fabric.” — Independent

“Thanhauser convincingly argues that getting dressed is a political act. Worn is also, unavoidably, about women: their place in the home and the value of their labour. It is an incredibly well-reported account of how fashion, far from being trivial, has shaped human history.” — The New Statesman

“Through the prism of five fabrics and five corresponding stories…Thanhauser lifts the veil on the ethics, or lack thereof, of the fashion industry.” — Departures

“In this delightful and fascinating book, Thanhauser…weaves a social history of clothing.” — The Globe and Mail

“Thanhauser’s approach to exposing a system gone so horribly wrong is to synthesise the existing literature, add fresh insights drawn from her own fieldwork, and deliver the findings in a richly evocative narrative powered, but never overwhelmed, by a sense of righteous anger…None of this is logistically or morally simple, and the great virtue of Thanhauser’s analysis is how alive she is to the difficulty of making these networks legible.” — The Guardian

Sofi’s Works

Sofi’s Videos

Sofi’s Music

Honors, Awards & Recognition

2025 Whiting Award Winner in Nonfiction
The Best, Buzziest New Books of 2022 – Harper’s BAZAAR
The Best Books of 2022- The New Yorker
BBC 4 Book of the Week. January 24-28, 2022

Media clips

The Guardian | Behind the label: how the US stitched up the Honduras garment industry

The Guardian | Worn by Sofi Thanhauser review – a panoramic history of getting dressed

Grist | How clothing forms the fabric of society, both past and future

Threads Magazine | Worn, by Sofi Thanhauser: Book Review

Media Kit

By clicking the link below you will be directed to a Google Docs Folder
where you can download author photos and cover images.