Be aware

The politics behind the clothing trade and the big labels

'Consumers in the West should not only be demanding answers from retailers as to how goods are produced but looking deep within themselves at how they spend their money.'

Professor Sheotaj Singh, co-founder of Dayanand Shilpa Vidyalaya, a Delhi-based rehabilitation centre and school for rescued child workers

In the Name of Fashion: Exploitation in the Garment Industry

This article by Hector Figueroa is more about the USA than Britain, but is still compelling:

"..there is a good chance that you or someone close to you is wearing clothing imported from Latin America. A quick check of the label may reveal that it is a shirt from the Gap made in Honduras, a pair of Lee Ryder jeans made in Brazil, Bali underpants made in Guatemala, a Levi's golf shirt made in the Dominican Republic, or a Haggar sports jacket made in Colombia.

Read more at www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=3034

Cleaning up the high street

The exploitation of garment workers is now a systemic problem among retailers, who have failed in their objective to deliver a 'living wage'. Read the Guardian article by John Hilary

Indian 'slave' children found making low-cost clothes destined for Gap

Child workers, some as young as 10, have been found working in a textile factory in conditions close to slavery to produce clothes that appear destined for Gap Kids, one of the most successful arms of the high street giant. Read this article by Dan McDougall from the Observer, 28 October 2007

Fashion Stakes

Uzbekistan's $1 billion cotton industry is the product of child labour, ecological vandalism and a brutal regime. Peter John Meiklem Speaks to those wishing to ban the T-shirt on your back. If any UK shopper buys any ten cotton items, from ten different shops or market stalls, then the chances are that several of them will have been made from the cotton picked by hand in the Uzbekistani fields. Read this article

Newsnight investigation: Cotton picked by children appears in UK high street clothes

An investigation for Newsnight on BBC Two has found that the government of Uzbekistan uses schoolchildren to pick cotton and that cotton often finds its way into clothes sold in British stores such as Asda, Matalan and Burton.
Read the article on the BBC website.

Labour Behind the Label

This is a campaign that supports garment workers' efforts worldwide to improve their working conditions. We educate consumers, lobby companies and government, raise awareness, and encourage international solidarity with workers. Find out more on the Labour Behind the Label website.

Grinding Poverty Dressed Up As Fashion

Shopping for clothes this weekend? Leading fashion stores face a dressing down in a new report that claims they have snubbed efforts to lift their foreign workers out of poverty. Find out more from the article by Paul Collins on ukwatch.net.

Let's Clean Up Fashion

This website aims to give you the information you need to be an active consumer. Click on a shop and find out all about that company. Use it to tell the companies what you think, support the workers who make your clothes, inform your friends and family and help us to Clean up Fashion. Find out more at www.cleanupfashion.co.uk

Here are some figures from the update to the joint campaign from War on Want and Let's clean up Fashion:

Topshop owner Green’s £1.2 billion dividend was enough to double the salaries of Cambodian’s whole garment workforce for eight years.
A worker making clothes for Green’s Arcadia group in Mauritius would need to toil for almost 4,000 years to gain the £3 million model Kate Moss earned for her Topshop clothing range.
The £4.6 million in salary and bonuses for Tesco’s chief executive Sir Terry Leahy could pay the annual wages of more than 25,000 Bangladeshi garment employees who supply its stores, based on average wages of about £15 a month.
Coleen McLoughlin, the fiancée of footballer Wayne Rooney, collected a reported £1.5 million as a spokesmodel for George at Asda - clothes made in Bangladesh for five pence an hour. Coleen’s £3000 Hermes Birkin handbag cost more than a Bangladeshi garment employee could earn in 16 years.
The £2.3 million in salary and bonuses for M&S chief executive Stuart Rose would pay the annual wages of almost 12,000 Sri Lankan garment workers.

An 80-hour week for 5p an hour: the real price of high-street fashion

Some of Britain's best-known high street brands are selling "cheap chic" clothes at the expense of workers in Bangladesh who are paid 5p an hour despite pledges to protect basic labour rights. Find out more at in this article in the Guardian on December 8, 2006 by Randeep Ramesh.

The Story of Stuff

Not just about clothes, but a great short video about production and consumption in a finite world. Annie Leonard narrates.

As it says on the website:

"From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It'll teach you something, it'll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever."

Great stuff!

Worn again

This site is all about re-using textiles:

"The new year is here and things couldn't be cosier in Worn Again world, where everything - from bicycle tires, car seat belts, e-leather and reclaimed jeans - is given a second chance in life."

Find out more at www.wornagain.co.uk

Please Email us to tell us any link or articles about the clothing trade and related issues.