The Ugly Truth of Fashion Industry

I have a deep interest in fashion as I believe fashion is a way to speak your self to the world without having saying a word. I have been playing dressed up since 5 and never stops. If you look through my instagram feed, there are lot of OOTD kinda pictures. I was a former fashion internship as well. Surprisingly currently I am studying International relation instead of fashion. In one of my lectures in International Relation, I was studying about the corporation. My professor gave me a book with the title No Logo written by Naomi Klein and it contains awful facts about the working of fashion industry and he showed me BBC documentary film related to the topic. I would like to share what I have learned so my reader will be aware with the injustice that exist in our mad world.

Fashion Industry is a very competitive world. A fierce competition is going on within that industry. Branding is their crucial aspects in order to survive in the competition. Brand place a significant role in attracting the buyers. For instance it is common thing that most of people will prefer Zara instead of the clothing that sold in market. Although it is the same sweater with the same color but if you are able to buy it in Zara then obviously you will pick Zara as is one of well-known fashion brand.

Rome was not built in a day so does brand. It is an extraordinarily costly project. There are many corporation that lavishly spending on branding for advertising, sponsorship, campaign, editorial and retail. They are aiming to expose their brand to the mass consumers. Branding is considered to be more important than the human and machines as machines wears out and human will passed away meanwhile branding is timeless. Therefore many corporation sacrifice their workers fund for the branding project. For instance when the Nike company sponsored a high-profile event such The vans wrapped tour, they earned the fund for sponsorship from shutting down their factory in California and contracting factory in South Korea.

The corporation needs to adjusting their cost of production as they need to make a lowest cost of production as possible and achieve maximum profit. New techniques of production is being employed by the companies. The company tends to throw away their responsibility over their workers. They hire contractors and they will tell them to produced the goods and make it very cheap again very cheap. So there will be lot of money left for branding project.

The corporation is hiring contractors from the developing countries and this leads to the appearance of free-trade zones. One of the example is Cavite Export Processing Zones in Rosario, Manila. It is home production for GAP, Nike and Marks and Spencer. It was designed by the government of developing country to attract foreign investors. The government is being flexible towards the company. They allow the workers to be paid below minimum wages. They even offers ‘tax holidays’, it is when the company is free from obligation of paying any form of taxes for the first 5 years. However in Sri Lanka the company is free for 10 years. The government is quite lax in constructing the law. The company is able to negotiate some rules. For instance if 6 dollar a day is too expensive. The company can apply to the government for a waiver.

The working condition in free-trade zones is so horrifying. The management is in military style, they are tends to be abusive to the workers. The wage is far below the minimum therefore lot of the workers live in slum area with a small dorm shared with approximately 5 people. No secure contracts, it is come and go. They can be fired all of sudden. They might works over-hours without being paid. If they refuse it will put them into dismissal as nonexsistent job security.

There are many terrifying story about working in free-trade zones. There is the story from Honduras about the workers that were injected with amphetamines so they could work 48 hours. In china the workers are forced to work for three days shift and they sleep under the machines. The contractors often face heavy financial penalties if they fail to deliver on time although the deadline is not reasonable. One of famous horror story about workers in free-trade zones came from Cavite. Carmelita Alonzo who is death because of a long period of overnight shift during a heavy peak season. She is worked overnight for a week. She is suffering from pneumonia. She initially asked her manager for time off to recover but she was denied. She was died on 8 March 1997 and it is recognized to be International women’s day.

Another frightening story related to women workers and pregnancy. In Mexico the government imposed substantial financial liabilities to the company who have a pregnant labor. Therefore some companies will not hire female job applicants who found to be pregnant. In the Honduran zones there have been reports of management forcing workers to have abortion. At some Mexican maquiladoras women are requited to prove they are menstruating through such humiliating process. Some women also admit that they are went into labor and flush the baby in the toilet because they are too afraid that the manager will find out that they will lose their job.

The last one coming from the BBC Documentary movie. This one is happened in Turkey. They are working for ASOS and Marks and Spencer. The workers said that they are only being paid for $1-3 dollar a day. They also experienced the unpaid over-hours working. The saddening part in Turkey, you can find underage children working in the factory without any protection. They are only 13 years old yet they have to work to feed the stomach. They are being paid much lesser than the adults.

It is an evident of modern days slavery. A lot of us think that slavery is part of the history but it does not. It is always been there from the start. It exist in our present day and it is just how the present society works that wrapped it very clever and made it invincible. A brilliant quote that sums up this whole thing came from famous Indonesian writer, Y.B. Mangunwijaya. :

“You might no see things yet on the surface but underground it’s already in fire.”

References :

NO LOGO by Naomi Klein