Fashion retailers like H&M, Zara and Forever 21 sell trendy products on the cheap. But does any great sale come with the cost of child labor? John Oliverexplored this topic on SundaysLast Week Tonight, taking aim at the fashion industry for its irresponsible supply chain management.
Fashion: personality you can buy, Oliver says to open the above segment. Citing an ApparelStats report, the host finds that in 2013,Americans purchased 64 items on average per person.Trendy clothing is cheaper than ever, and cheap clothing is trendier than ever, he says, thanks to fast-fashion companies that rake in profits with their high-volume sales. (Forbes ranks Zara co-founder Amancio Ortega as the fourth-richest person in the world, at $67.1 billion.) Its a simple business model: In order to sell clothes for cheap, you have to sell a lot of them, so you have to make them quickly and cost-effectively.
We produce clothes almost entirely overseas, where its much cheaper, Oliver says, noting that in order to reflect its production methods American Eagle should really be named Bangladeshi Swamphen. The host examines the issue in detail, citing various news reports that show the horrifying use of international child labor for brands like the Gap and Walmart. Sweatshops arent one of those Nineties problems we got rid of, like Donnie Wahlberg, he jokes. Theyre one of those Nineties problems were still dealing with, like Mark Wahlberg.
Oliver ends the segment by calling out the owners of Gap, Walmart, Joe Fresh, H&M and The Childrens Place, arguing that their own ignorance of child labor isnt a proper excuse.To drill home his point, he offers to send the executives cheap, butsuspicious-looking, lunches like mystery meat dumplings and dirt-cheap rotisserie chickens.