Supima: World's Finest Cottons

Image of Supima: World's Finest Cottons
Author(s): 
Release Date: 
February 13, 2018
Publisher/Imprint: 
Rizzoli
Pages: 
256
Reviewed by: 

This is a book that celebrates the art of branding, American cotton production, and good old American ingenuity and creativity. Supima is interwoven, pun intended, with the world of fashion via amazing marketing tools as well as collaborations, but ultimately Supima is a book about brand building, brand recognition, fiber, fabric, and certainly the power of advertising.

“Supima ranks in the top one percent of the finest grade cotton available on the planet.”

Supima is a sort of chronicle or a timeline which some might consider to be a bit like a text book or primer, but the authors provide the context of the product/brand via a history of fashion, past and present, as well as exposing brands that you might not recognize as well as those that are part of the culture and vocabulary of fashion.

What is also of great importance here is that this is an American luxury brand whose roots began long before we began recognizing any American born luxury products. Additionally and even more importantly this is about a fiber and a fabric as well as an agricultural component of modern fashion.

What cannot be ignored is that the execution of this book which is pluperfect. The images, layout and even the cover rank with Supima’s much heralded quality of cotton . . . in the top 1%.

“Supima is a non-profit organization whose main objective is to promote the use of U.S. grown American Pima cotton around the world; it derived its name from superior pima. Supima licenses about 400 selected high-quality mills, textile and clothing manufacturers, and brands/retailers to use the SUPIMA® trademark; Its other activities include research programs to improve the quality of American Pima cotton, timely crop and market information to its grower-members and licensees, advertisements in both consumer and trade publications and an annual design competition featuring top graduates from the leading U.S. fashion and design schools that is showcased during New York Fashion Week in September.” —Wikipedia