Exploring the Hidden Social Costs of Fast Fashion in Italy

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UMass Amherst Professor of Anthropology Elizabeth L. Krause is gaining attention in Italy for her research on the social impacts of fast fashion. 

Krause’s book Tight Knit: Global Families and the Social Life of Fast Fashion (University of Chicago Press, 2018) is now available in an Italian edition from Luiss University Press, Trame: La vita segreta del fast fashion Italiano, with a preface by Fabio Bracci and Massimo Bressan. On November 22, Krause was interviewed on the Italian news program Walden on Cusano TV. Italy is a leader in the global fashion industry and, increasingly, a site of fast fashion production.

During the interview, Prof. Krause explained that fast fashion, sold around the world in large retail chains, “refers to a clothing industry that makes low-quality clothes at extremely low prices and launches new collections continuously and in a very short time.” Krause notes that speed, flexibility, and responsive production are widely understood as beneficial qualities, and “the fashion industry plays on that image of constant renewal.” 

“Being flexible becomes a positive trait not only for consumers but also for investors: the latter are motivated by the widespread opinion that fast fashion firms are a good investment,” she says.

Krause’s research explores the social conditions behind fast fashion, such as the toll the rapid pace of production takes on workers and their families. “They have to cover very long shifts, up to sixteen or eighteen hours, when there are orders to be fulfilled—so that stock is always on hand as trending items can go in and out of the stores,” says Krause. “Sometimes, workers’ shifts extend into the night, and they can only manage to sleep for a few hours during the day. They are often compelled to send their children thousands of miles away for someone to take care of them.”

Most workers in Krause’s study were Chinese migrants, many of whom have young children who are moved between China and Italy. Fast fashion is commonly produced in Asian and North African countries with low labor and materials costs, but production in Italy is increasing to make use of the “Made in Italy” label, which consumers interpret as an indicator of quality. Especially in the United States, “There’s a history to this that connects today's garments with Italian art, a sort of myth of continuity with the Renaissance. I trace this to the famous 1966 flood in Florence,” notes Krause, referring to the catastrophic flood of the river Arno and subsequent highly publicized rescue and conservation efforts by Americans who volunteered as “Mud Angels” to save masterpieces of Italian art. “This effort served as a great education on the history of art for the American public, which continues to imagine the brand of Made in Italy exclusively as associated with luxury and beauty,” says Krause, who reminds us that in the fast fashion industry, constant renewal of style is often more important than actual garment quality.

For the Chinese migrants sewing “Made in Italy” labels into low-cost items in Tuscan factories, Krause describes how the struggle to cope with the unpredictable demands of work and the shifting social fabric of Italy is resulting in new care networks: parents, relatives, and friends creating “global families” in which children can find love and nurturing despite upheaval and instability. 

“For better or worse, we are all involved in the fast fashion ecosystem,” says Krause.