Although my previous post remains a contemporary issue on the exploitation of the Global South by the Global North in the textiles industry, it is not the only example of garment-worker-exploitation. In this post, I will be discussing the example of Pretty Little Thing, a fast-fashion company headquartered in Manchester and owned by Boohoo Group PLC. The clothes are shockingly inexpensive and make longstanding affordable brands like H&M look expensive. One could assume that they follow the same garment-factory practices as other fast fashion brands, aka relying on the Global South. However, people were shocked to discover that the sweatshops that once seemed so distant from the ‘developed’ Global North, were in fact taking place in that very field – in Leicester, UK.
Image: Pretty Little Thing Garment Factory in Leicester, UK. InsiderMedia.
This revelation came as the parent company, Boohoo Group PLC, faced investigations of modern slavery as it was discovered that the garment workers at the Leicester factories were being paid £3.50/hour (Duncan 2020) (the UK minimum wage at the time was between £6.15-8.21 per hour in 2020) (HM Government 2020).
Although these factories were and are still located in the Global North, and thus don’t entirely follow the neo-colonial undertones of fast fashion directly, research shows that the garment workers at the Leicester factories are overwhelmingly women and migrants;
“Migrant workers are targeted because they often don’t speak the language, have few friends, have limited rights and depend on their employers.” (Anti-Slavery International cited in Breen 2020)
In 2015, the Ethical Trading Initiative found that mostly migrant garment workers in Leicester were subject to physical and verbal abuse, threats and terrible health and safety standards (Breen 2020). This exploitation and abuse continue as “the people being exploited lack voice and representation” (p.36). Breen (2020) commented that the media coverage for this news story was not as vast as it should have been, comparing it with a hypothetical scenario of white men being victims of modern slavery in a more affluent area like Surrey (p.36).
Breen rightly highlights the issue of gender inequality and racial hierarchies within the UK garment industry, that it is mostly women of colour that are affected by poor working conditions and more extremely modern slavery. Thus, although I began this post stating that the neo-colonial undertones is not a one-size-fits-all for garment supply chains, there is clearly a racial inequality that exists, meaning that it is mostly women of colour who are also migrants, that are making the clothes for consumers in the Global North.
This dichotomy is made worse when we see that the Creative Director of Pretty Little Thing is Molly-Mae Hague, a white, middle-class influencer who is the face of the brand, allegedly earning an income in the 6 to 7 figures (Salisbury 2022), whilst the garment workers earned well below minimum wage.
To conclude, this part of the series has highlighted the complexities of the garment industry and its issues of race and gender in particular and has concluded this section of the series on the garment workers themselves, and the discrimination they face. The next section of the series will be on the consumers and the act of consuming fast fashion vs. "ethical" fashion.
Bibliography
Breen, K. 2020. CLEANING UP FAST FASHION. RSA Journal 166(2), pp. 34–37.
Duncan, C. 2020. Boohoo “facing modern slavery investigation” after report finds Leicester workers paid as little as £3.50 an hour. Independent 5 July. Available at:
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/boohoo-leicester-factories-modern-slavery-boohoo-leicester-factories-modern-slavery-investigation-coronavirus-coronavirus-fast-fashion-a9602086.html. [Accessed: 06/04/2022].
HM Government 2020. The National Minimum Wage in 2020. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-national-minimum-wage-in-2020 [Accessed: 6 April 2022].
Salisbury, J. 2022. Molly-Mae Hague signs “seven-figure” deal days after controversial wealth comments. Evening Standard 13 January. Available at: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/mollymae-hague-love-island-beauty-works-deal-b976586.html. [Accessed: 06/04/2022].
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