The Ugly Truth About Your Pretty Little Things

By Adam Noor

Out-out tomorrow?

Of course you are, you wouldn’t miss it for the world.

But you’ve got nothing to wear!

Well - nothing you haven’t worn before. Nothing that five other girls won’t be wearing too. Nothing you’re really feeling.

So, you scroll through an endless selection of polyester party dresses. Backless, bodycon and blazer dresses. Mini, midi and maxi dresses. Until you find the perfect one.

Perfect, that is, until it arrives of course.

The doorbell goes and before you can stop to think, you’re tearing through layers of plastic to reveal the plastic you’ll pull over your head. Once it’s on, it looks almost like it did in the pictures. I mean, sure, it ruches across your stomach and it’s three inches shorter than you expected. But really, what can you expect for £4.99.

Then again, the price you pay is never the same as the cost. The true cost is paid in full, by millions of workers in sweatshops thousands of miles away from you and your dress.

They pay with their bodies, their children’s bodies, in intolerable conditions for a fraction of your £4.99. Toiling thread by thread, each worker knows that they will never be able to afford the fruits of their own labour.

Now, this same thread runs down your seam, connecting you, try as you might to forget, to a tapestry of exploitation. A system in which you can sport your very own ‘#FEMINIST’ shirt made by a 10-year-old girl in Bangladesh.

The glamour of our love for fashion is fading fast. The UK was once synonymous with the craftsmanship of Saville Row and the D.I.Y philosophy of the Punk Revolution is now known for buying more clothes per person than any country in Europe.

Our addiction to fast fashion can be seen everywhere. According to Greenpeace UK, staples of the UK high street like Primark, H&M and Zara are among the worst offenders when it comes to disregarding the environmental and humanitarian impact of their businesses in the interest of maximising profit margins.

What’s worse is that, according to Greenpeace, 300,000 tonnes of these garments are incinerated or sent to landfill sites every year, with a considerable amount of them never being worn or even sold. This ‘costeffective’ method of disposing of deadstock causes huge ecological damages to our planet which are even more worrying when considering the amount of fossil fuels needed to create these products in the first place.

Take for instance, the fact that buying a single white cotton shirt produces the same number of emissions as driving 35 miles in a car. When this industry creates products made from our most precious resources, on a scale that could clothe the entire planet a hundred times over and then burns what’s left rather than giving back to those who need it – it’s easy to see why people see fashion as a fickle, soulless world.

Yet, perhaps the most soulless aspect of the fashion food chain is the way it treats those at the bottom.

The working conditions of the garment workers from Southeast Asia are a far cry from les petites mains of Parisian ateliers, despite the number of luxury brands that have decided to relocate their manufacturing bases to places like China, Vietnam and Bangladesh. In 2018, workers’ rights watchdog KnowTheChain awarded luxury clothing conglomerate LVMH, which controls brands like Dior, Fendi and Givenchy, a ranking of just 14/100 for their treatment of garment workers. This reflects LVMH’s resistance to transparency in their supply chains and their alleged use of forced labour in their garment factories.

According to KnowTheChain, workers in these positions are often lured into roles under false pretences. Promises of a liveable wage, free accommodation and a chance to provide for their family turn out to be a low-wage role, working seventeen-hour days in unregulated factories which are hotbeds for exploitation. In Bangalore for instance, 80% of garment workers are women, often from rural areas, who may be unaware of their rights and discriminated against due to India’s caste system.

Women in these lines of employment are more likely to be subject to sexual harassment and abuse and be unable to raise allegations of this abuse due to fears of repercussion, societal pressure and financial instability.

KnowTheChain has reported a disturbing lack of regulation in these areas, coupled with the use of recruitment agencies has allowed for disturbing professional practices to be considered the norm. For instance, recruitment fees, where workers are expected to pay third-party agencies upwards of $7000 to secure their position, leaving them indebted to their employers in a form of modern-day indentured servitude. This system not only prevents the upward mobility of millions of workers, it allows companies like LVMH to avoid accountability and criticism whilst reaping the benefits of cheap, outsourced labour

However, it is not only the people of the Global South being made to bear the cross of fashion’s elite. Those making the decision to produce clothing on a hyper-industrial scale are being allowed to export its consequences by forcing Southeast Asian and African countries to house the sites of production and act as dumping ground for textile waste despite these countries often lacking the infrastructure to execute this safely.

In Kenya for example, the once prosperous Gikomba textile market has become the final destination of 185,000 tonnes of second-hand clothes in 2019; 30-40% of which had no market value, meaning that 55,500–74,000 tonnes was actually textile waste - according to Greenpeace. In Bangladesh, dye pollution from the abundance of garment factories has polluted rivers with a cocktail of carcinogenic chemicals, depleting local fish populations and rendering the water undrinkable.

These are yet more examples of the Global North turning their back on the ugly realities of its industries and absolving itself of any attachment to the fates of millions who help to sustain them.With every purchase, we weave ourselves inexorably into the fabric of oppression - while holding it far away enough that we fail to see the tears .