For a decade, a Chinese tailor toiled in a three-story building on the outskirts of Milan, working 13 hours a day making high-end garments for brands including Italian cashmere label Loro Piana.
The unnamed worker was paid off-the-books, earning roughly €1,500 ($1,742) a month, according to legal documents — about the price of one Loro Piana baby cashmere sweater. He became part of a hidden, underground labor force, employed by third parties, who craft luxury clothing for Italy’s most renowned fashion houses.
His case, which came to light after the tailor’s boss stopped paying wages and allegedly attacked him, became part of an ongoing probe of persistent worker abuses in one of Italy’s most important industries. For two years, prosecutors have sought to reform an export model where premium brands sell Italian fashion abroad at luxury prices, even as inexpensive workshops proliferate around Milan, flouting labor standards in Italy’s capital of style.
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