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Fashion history 18th 20th century
Fashion at the beginning of the 20th century
Fashion history 18th 20th century
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In the Nineteenth Century, the fashion industry began when the designer, Charles Frederick Worth, was first to place his personal label on his garments. Soon after this occurred, many other designers began to follow his lead by sewing their own personal brand on their apparel as well. Years later, the fashion industry boomed and designers could no longer sew labels on all garments alone. So, designers began to hire groups of individuals to do the jobs for them in small buildings called sweatshops. These sweatshops are one of the most serious problems for economic conditions in the fashion production industry. Sweatshops produce more the seventy-five percent of clothing, footwear, and accessories used in the United States. Unfortunately, sweatshop employees, the individuals that assemble large numbers of garments, are forced to work in harsh environments, are paid unfair wages, work long hours, and abuse child labor laws. More than 500 pieces of fashion goods are produced in sweatshops a day. Because of the harsh work environment, some workers are subjected to sexual abuse while others suffer from illness due to inadequate ventilation available in their work rooms. Since outsiders began noticing
Department of Labor). These are all important things to keep in mind when spreading awareness at the retail level. The top stores known for using sweatshops are Polo, Gap, Wal-Mart, Kohl’s, Hanes, JcPenny, and Macy’s. A way to take action in each of these department stores are to make sure the next time you shop there, ask the workers to make sure their suppliers are treated fairly in their workplace with proper pay. Another option would be to fill out a customer survey online or in store to make sure the company know customers are aware of the treatment their suppliers are
The controversial issue of sweatshops is one often over looked by The United States. In the Social Issues Encyclopedia, entry # 167, Matt Zwolinski tackles the issues of sweatshops. In this article Matt raises a question I have not been able to get out of my head since I have begun researching this topic, “ are companies who contract with sweatshops doing anything wrong?” this article goes on to argue that the people who work in the sweatshops willingly choose to work there, despite the poor environment. Many people in third world countries depend on the sweatshops to earn what they can to have any hopes of surviving. If the sweatshops were to shut down many people would lose their jobs, and therefore have no source of income. This may lead people to steal and prostitution as well. this article is suggesting that sweatshops will better the economy by giving people a better job than what they may have had. Due to this the companies contracting with sweatshops are not acting wrong in any way. This was a deductive article it had a lot of good examples to show how sweatshops are beneficial to third world countries. Radly Balko seemed to have the same view point as Matt Zwolinski. Many people believe the richer countries should not support the sweatshops Balko believes if people stopped buying products made in sweatshops the companies will have to shut down and relocate, firing all of the present workers. Rasing the fact that again the worker will have no source of income, the workers need the sweatshop to survive. Balko also uses the argument that the workers willingly work in the current environments.
Various groups support or embody the anti-sweatshop movement today. The National Labor Committee brought sweatshops into the mainstream media in the 1990s when it exposed the use of sweatshop and child labor to sew Kathie Lee Gifford's Wal-Mart label. United Students Against Sweatshops is active on college campuses. The International Labor Rights Fund filed a lawsuit[20] on behalf of workers in China, Nicaragua, Swaziland, Indonesia, and Bangladesh against Wal-Mart charging the company with knowingly developing purchasing policies particularly relating to price and delivery time that are impossible to meet while following the Wal-Mart code of conduct. Labor unions, such as the AFL-CIO, have helped support the anti-sweatshop movement out of concern both for the welfare of people in the developing world and that companies will move jobs from the United States elsewhere in order to capitalize on lower costs. For example, the American labor union UNITE HERE, which represents garment workers, has only approximately 3,000 garment workers remaining in its base, because some of the larger garment making operations have already been transferred o...
Look down at the clothes you're wearing right now, chances are almost every single thing you are currently wearing was made in a sweatshop. It is estimated that between 50-75% of all garments are made under sweatshop like conditions. Designers and companies get 2nd party contractors to hire people to work in these factories, this is a tool to make them not responsible for the horrendous conditions. They get away with it by saying they are providing jobs for people in 3rd world countries so its okay, but in reality they are making their lives even worse. These companies and designers only care about their bank accounts so if they can exploit poor, young people from poverty stricken countries they surely will, and they do. A sweatshop is a factory
The mere idea of sweatshops, let alone their existence, seems cruel and unusual to people like us, especially in today's day and age. After all, in sweatshops "workers are subject to extreme exploitation. This includes... (not) enabling workers to cover ...
...e their product. Sweatshops are found usually all over the world and need to make a better decision as in more labor laws, fair wages, and safety standards to better the workers' conditions. It should benefit the mutually experiences by both the employers and the employees. Most important is the need to be educated about their rights and including local labor laws.
Timmerman suggests that “We share little with the people who make our clothes nowadays. We’re divided by oceans, politics, language, culture, and a complex web of economic relationships. It doesn’t affect our daily lives if they are overworked and underpaid as it did during the turn of the twentieth century,” thus demonstrating the inadequacy of outsourcing and the relationships between the corporation, factory workers, and the consumer (180). The dynamic between the corporations, factory workers, factory owners, and middle-men is complicated and tense due to the interactions, communication, and duties differentiating between each group. For the factory workers, they suffer working in hard conditions, though the workers are happy to have a job, they would rather endure the harsh stipulations for the means of production to make money to send to their families than to protest against their factory owners (Timmerman 7).
In China, Kelsey Timmerman spent time with a couple who worked at the Teva factory, traveled to the countryside to meet the couple’s son, insert name, who hasn’t seen his parents in three years due to his parents working long hours and it being expensive to take a train ride. In the US, the author visited one of a few clothing factories in the US to talk to the workers about his shorts, and the decrease of American garment factories. Timmerman wants the consumer to be more engaged and more thoughtful when mindlessly buying clothes. By researching how well the brands you want to buy from monitor their factories and what their code of ethics details, you can make a sound decision on if this is where you would want to buy your clothes. The author writes about brands that improve employers lives like SoleRebels, a shoe company who employs workers and gives them health insurance, school funds for their children, and six months of maternity leave. Brands like soleRebels that give workers benefits most factory workers have never even heard of help improve the lives of garment workers and future generations. From reading this book, Timmerman wants us to be more educated about the lives of garment workers, bridge the gap between consumers and manufacturers, and be a more engaged and mindful consumer when purchasing our
It is often said that products made in sweatshops are cheap and that is why people buy those products, but why is it behind the clothes or shoes that we wear that make sweatshops bad? In the article Sweat, Fire and Ethics by Bob Jeffcott is trying to persuade the people and tell them how sweatshops are bad. Bob Jeffcott supports the effort of workers of the global supply chains in order to win improved wages and good working conditions and a better quality of life of those who work on sweatshops. He mentions and describes in detail how the conditions of the sweatshops are and how the people working in them are forced to long working hours for little money. He makes the question, “we think we can end sweatshops abuses by just changing our individual buying habits?” referring to we can’t end the abuses that those women have by just stopping of buying their products because those women still have to work those long hours because other people are buying their product for less pay or less money.
This article attracts audiences who are interested in the scientific process of garment manufacture, as well as the people who are interested in learning about the economic developments around the world. It gives a sense of familiarity to readers in America by explaining that the Planet Money T-shirt cotton was grown and picked in Mississippi. Then, the reporters gradually move the readers along by explaining al...
To conclude, the capability to create customized clothing is becoming undemanding as technology evolves. Ready made apparel was only available in predetermined sizes before the American Civil War, this exemplifies how the sizes were arbitrary and were not the same on a broad scale. The statement “The wealthy’s clothes were made by tailors” is a prime example of how tailored outfits are costly. Today, designers have computer-aided design to their disposal; this improved the creation of clothing in many ways, making it effortless to design the clothing and to also produce them. With the creation of new technology making clothes, fabrics will become easier.
I read ‘I almost died making your clothes!’ in Scope magazine about sweatshops in Bangladesh and the bad conditions and wages the workers get. It was tragic because most of the workers were working in American clothing companies. It was horrible because then that meant someone had made my clothes in those conditions. I was sad to hear that it still happens around the world and so I writing to you about it. I want to make sure that some of my favorite brands aren’t doing that.
Sweatshops increase the standards of living for the workers and their communities. The comparison between working conditions in the United States against
Many people in our society today are constantly asking, "Why do sweatshops exist?" The answer to this question is that companies like Nike and Wal-Mart use sweatshops to produce their goods for a much cheaper rate, to reduce the cost of their products. The problem with sweatshops is that the workers are subject to hard work in often times poor conditions for minimal pay. But although many people may condemn sweatshops, there are some advantages that many people overlook when arguing against sweatshops and their practices.
Americans do not realize the amount of clothing we wear on a daily basis is actually made in Cambodia, such as Adidas and even the Gap. The women that work for these sweatshops in Cambodia sew for 50 cents an hour, which is what allows stores in America, such as H&M to sell inexpensive clothing (Winn, 2015). The conditions these Cambodian workers face are a noisy, loud, and extremely hot environment where people are known for having huge fainting attacks. When workers were on strike a year ago, authorities actually shot multiple people just because they were trying to raise their pay. There is plenty of evidence of abuse captured through many interviews of workers from different factories, and is not just a rarity these places see often or hear of. Factories hire children, fire pregnant women because they are slow and use the bathroom to much, scream at regular workers if they use the toilet more than two times a day, scam hard working employees with not paying them their money they worked for and more, and workers are sent home and replaced if 2,000 shirts are not stitched in one day. Expectations are unrealistic and not suitable for employees to be working each day for more than ten
In the early 1800s, France was the sole fashion capital of the world; everyone who was anyone looked towards Paris for inspiration (DeJean, 35). French fashion authority was not disputed until the late twentieth century when Italy emerged as a major fashion hub (DeJean, 80). During the nineteenth century, mass produced clothing was beginning to be marketed and the appearance of department stores was on the rise (Stearns, 211). High fashion looks were being adapted and sold into “midlevel stores” so that the greater public could have what was once only available to the social elite (DeJean, 38). People were obsessed with expensive fashions; wealthy parents were advised not the let their children run around in expensive clothing. People would wait for children dressed in expensive clothing to walk by and then they would kidnap them and steal their clothes to sell for money (DeJean, 39). Accessories were another obsession of France‘s fashion; they felt no outfit was complete without something like jewelry or a shrug to finish off the look and make it all around polished (DeJean, 61). As designers put lines together, marketing began to become important to fashion in the nineteenth century; fashion plates came into use as a way to show off fashion l...