Fashion and politics do not make the happiest of bedfellows. 

 

在时尚和政治领域不会有愉快的共事者。
 

 

For all its virtue¹ signalling, a system based on inequality and insecurity - that's the fashion business - has little room for genuine compassion². However, last week the beneficiaries of sweated labour are being asked to examine their consciences - and their order books - as part of Fashion Revolution Week.

 

This is a global response to the collapse³ of the Rana Plaza⁴ factory complex in Bangladesh that killed 1,134 people and injured 2,500 more, on 24 April 2013. And as well as a "label selfie" campaign on social media, it has already provoked a special Fashion Question Time in the House of Commons, hosted by Labour MP Mary Creagh, at which the industry was urged to come clean about its foreign suppliers and help to clean up the iniquitous⁵ conditions under which their workers are hired.

 

The disaster graphically⁶ demonstrated the true cost of quickly changing trends, or "fast fashion", for high-street brands such as Gap and Benetton: dangerous working conditions, long hours and little pay for the garment workers. And what made it worse is that 2013 was global fashion's most profitable year to date.

 

"Most of the public is still not aware that human and environmental abuses are endemic across the fashion and textiles industry and that what they're wearing could have been made in an exploitative way," says Carry Somers, the co-founder of Fashion Revolution, who argues that transparency is the first step towards persuading brands to take responsibility for working conditions across the supply chain. Which is why, last week, people are taking those "label selfies", tagging the brands of what they're wearing, and asking #whomademyclothes.

点击收听单词发音