Fashion Victims and Villains

Top by new ethical fashion brand, sketch london.

Left-leaning newspapers have been running a series of articles ever since the Bangladesh garment factory collapsed.  The death toll has now sadly passed 500, mostly women, but why are consumers and fashion brands being made to bear the majority of the guilty burden? That fingers have been pointed at some brands was inevitable and fashion is regularly targeted for being a poison of the world: the very sick and visible face of capitalism and greed.  In Bangladesh and India the tragedy is being reported as a corrupt failure of building regulations not a story about Evil Fashion Brands.

The usual suspects of British ethical fashion have been carted out with the usual snippets of condemnation and hissing at the likes of Primark, GAP and so on.  Will consumers care they ask? Can they afford to I ask?  This could be a long article so please get a cuppa or a glass of wine.  I promise you will learn a thing or two.

Fashion on Fire

We all know about the dark side of fashion production so I’m not going to go into the morals of it all here but I just wanted to draw attention to Indian current affairs that may affect a global brand near you.  These are facts, whether you feel like you want to change your buying habits or write to complain to any brand mentioned that is up to you.

On Monday this week there was a mini riot and complete carnage at a garment factory just outside Delhi

Brick Lane, Exploitation Lane

London’s Brick Lane is famous for its South Asian restaurants, always busy to bursting point.  I have never eaten there as it has never really appealed to me but a story reported in the New Statesman will probably resonate beyond Brick Lane to any South Asian restaurant near you…

Bangladeshi restaurant workers in Brick Lane have formed their first ever trade union to help overcome increasingly bad working conditions

Slaves in 2011?

A rather chilling news item in The Guardian yesterday about a woman of South Asian origin and former hospital director who has been charged for keeping a home-help as a slave! What’s going on?

Fed two slices of bread a day and made to sleep on the floor