Metz Podcast Segment 3

Fast fashion has brought negative impacts on humanity through sweatshops and social imaging. Brands like Sheen, Naki, and Zara are known for running sweatshops with abusive working conditions. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory is an example of such conditions. Clara Lomlich, an employee, described low pay, long hours, and punishment styles. Naki had sweatshops with horrible conditions and pay, as reported by Business Insider and The Guardian. These factories had poor ventilation, restricted restroom use, and underpay. Brandy Melville created an image around being skinny, white, blonde, and female, damaging the image of fast fashion. Fast fashion has introduced many negative things to the world and its people. For the third segment of the podcast, I'm going to discuss the negative humanity impacts that fast fashion has brought about, specifically through sweatshops and social imaging. Although fast fashion has made clothes affordable and easily accessible, it has introduced a new problem to humans. Not only has it damaged our earth, it has put workers in the way of abuse and horrid working conditions. Many of the brands that are known for running sweatshops are fast fashion clothing brands. Examples are Sheen, Naki, and Zara. One of the first well-known incidents of abusive working conditions is the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. A first-hand account from Clara Lomlich, an employee at the factory, shows what life was like. She talked about the low pay, long hours, awful conditions, and punishment styles in the shops. The women would have to work 13 hours with only a 30-minute break for lunch. And even during their lunch, they could barely afford to eat anything because they had been so underpaid. She said that there were punishments that you would get if you messed up on a job. One specifically was that you were forced to pay for a damaged garment, even if you weren't the one that damaged it. The boss of the factory was not very bright, and he yelled at the women and treated them very badly. In the fire, there were 146 deaths. During J-Term this year, I took a class called U.S. Business History, and I did a research project on Naki and its use of sweatshops in child exploitation. My research found that, in the 1990s, word got out to the world that Naki had multiple sweatshops around the world with horrible working conditions and pay. Business Insider provides a list of stories within four Naki sweatshops, including one that says that workers are paid as little as 14 cents an hour in Indonesia. The Guardian reported that four Cambodian factories, including Naki, had over 500 employees hospitalized and 300 more collapsed, all within a three-day span. The working conditions in these factories consisted of a 98.6 degree Fahrenheit, poor ventilation and air circulation, chemical emissions, restricted use of the restroom, padlocked exit doors, underpay, and forced overtime. These factories were investigated, and it was determined that the employees in Cambodia were not being paid a living wage. Between 2003 and 2004, there were 569 factories that were examined. And more than a fourth of Naki's South Asian factories, there were cases of both physical and verbal abusive treatment. To bring the story back to more social imaging, recently I watched the new Brandy Melville documentary on Netflix. I thought that it was interesting because there were so many things going on behind the scenes that I had no idea about. This brand created their image around the stereotype of being skinny, white, blonde, and female. They are well-known for their one-size-fits-most sizing. Fast fashion businesses like Brandy Melville have damaged the image of fast fashion as a whole by placing unrealistic standards onto society. The emergence of fast fashion as a whole has introduced many negative things to our world and the people living in it.