Manchester-based clothing brand Lawsuit Apparel has turned the plight of low-paid overseas garment workers into a one-off jumpsuit that gives voice to the protest against exploitative labour practices in the fast-fashion industry.
In 2014, shoppers in South Wales reported seeing mysterious messages on labels sewn into the neckline of clothes they’d bought from fast fashion outlets. They featured statements such as, “Forced to Work Exhausting Hours” and “Degrading Sweatshop Conditions”, and appeared to be cries for help from the women in Bangladesh who’d made the garments. Subsequent investigations suggested the labels had probably been stitched into the garments by protesters in the UK but their exact origin remained a mystery.
Last year the labels resurfaced on social media, accompanied by claims they’d been sewn into clothes from online fast-fashion retailers. Trending videos on TikTok were quickly followed by news stories drawing attention to this new wave of SOS messages. Stung by the criticism, fast-fashion giants subsequently debunked these new labels as another hoax.
But the appalling treatment of the people who make our clothes is no hoax.
While the fashion industry turns over nearly $3tn a year, garment workers, 80 per cent of them women, are still working for poverty pay, earning as little as £68 a month. Long hours, forced overtime, unsafe working conditions, sexual, physical and verbal abuse and short term contracts are all reality in the factories making clothes sold in the UK, and a lack of supply chain transparency doesn’t help hold brands accountable.
Lawsuit have now created a bespoke piece of “workwear couture,” in the hope of helping and supporting female factory workers and drawing attention to sweatshop working conditions in Bangladesh and beyond. Made in Manchester, this one-off jumpsuit features 500 “worker SOS labels”, stitched into the front-mid panels and will be auctioned to raise money for organisations campaigning to improve the lives of overseas garment workers.
Lawsuit creative director, Keith Gray, commented: “The problem with the original protests was that nobody knew exactly who’d created these labels, that were intended to give a voice to women making clothes in appalling conditions. So instead of focussing on the real issue, the debate became focussed on who’d made the labels, instead of the issues they were drawing attention to.
“This time there can be no doubt who created these labels of protest, it was Lawsuit. The jumpsuit is intended as a piece of art, which aims to provoke questions about the treatment of workers in the fast fashion industry, rather than who made the labels.”
