“How Green Are We?”

By Mariella Milani

How green are we? Is there a correlation between sustainability and opportunity equality? Can a green system actually work without an ethical code? I attempted to cautiously explore these questions in my book titled “Fashion Confidential”.

A few weeks ago, TGR Veneto aired a report on the inhumane conditions – not of work, but of slavery – endured by 154 Chinese workers in various Italian factories. All factories involved manufacture clothing for luxury brands. The labourers were forced to work gruelling shifts, even on public holidays or during their unpaid vacations. All this on part-time contracts issued by five separate companies.

The investigative report “A Stone in the Shoe” (“Il Sassolino Nella Scarpa”), broadcast on Rai3 in the programme Presa Diretta, offers more detail. It features Albanian women whose hands are badly deformed due to their working conditions, people who are beaten with sticks, and pollution that causes serious diseases among the inhabitants of the surrounding areas. Malpractices that by no means only affect Chinese-owned businesses in Italy, but also Italian craftsmen, who are forced to accept ridiculous prices to produce items that are then sold for hundreds or even thousands of Euros. These are men and women who silently accept their plight, because speaking up could mean ending up on the street! We talk about sustainability, but is this the human sustainability of the luxury world?

Let’s address another sore point in our industry. Italy cannot afford to manage its own supply chains green and ethically, but to simultaneously allow the unregulated import of products to continue. This is how our market is flooded with products that are not saleable under our own standards. These are products containing chemicals that are illegal in Europe, produced by women in forced labour. These are products that should not be sold in the EU! We cannot turn a blind eye to this!

Fashion must return to creating culture and beauty instead of prioritising profit maximisation. We must restore the meaning of the word fashion! Matteo Ward, a visionary in the field of social and environmental justice, is a young man who I perceive as a role model for the future. He said something that really struck a chord with me: “If the fashion industry were a state, equal opportunity would be a utopia.” So let’s keep asking uncomfortable questions. Let’s find out how wide the gap between reality and communicated facts actually is. And let’s start closing that gap!