When it comes to mass-produced clothing, we regularly think of the likes of Zara and H&M producing thousands upon thousands of items every week to get into the store as fast as possible. Along with that is the unpleasant image of clothing factories collapsing with workers inside it. It's not the best mental picture. But according to Quartz, there is a huge amount of manufacturing that happens in people's homes and you may end up with a t-shirt that was literally hand-stitched in someone's living room. These homeworkers are fairly unaccounted for, paid even less than their factory worker counterparts and typically unprotected by labor laws.
A brand contracts a factory to do its work and the factory contracts the homeworkers in addition to the workers inside the factory. Though they're mostly invisible and ignored by employment records, there are an estimated 12.5 million homeworkers in India alone and it's estimated they account for more than 50% of items made in India. While they're paid less than factory workers, their tasks are more intricate and labor-intensive like beadwork or weaving and hand-knitting. This report is a pretty incredible look at how clothes get made and provides an in-depth look at the supply chain and levels of hierarchy in place that you probably don't know that much about. Take a look.
