The Stitch of Racism

One fashion designer’s experience working in a sweatshop

The clothes we wear come from somewhere. And as the price tags drop on the cost of fast fashion, chances are pretty high that some kid in a sweatshop, in another country, had a hand in making that garment.

One of those kids grew up to be a fashion designer. And in the wake of all the fall fashion magazine releases and New York Fashion Week, designer Soreyda Benedit-Begley asks us to examine what we think we know about fashion and how it intersects with race — and specifically anti-Black racism.

“It’s America’s turn to consider the role of race in fashion and how it intersects with exploitative labor,” she writes in ZORA.

“I tell them that as a former sweatshop worker, I can’t look at a $5 T-shirt on sale in H&M or Walmart without thinking about the hands that made it and the time it took to stitch the fabric. I tell them: Imagine doing that work yourself — cutting and sewing the materials, over and over — and you’ll see that there’s simply no way to manufacture a shirt for $5 without exploiting someone.”

Part of the work in erasing racism is seeing how it permeates even the clothes we wear.

At 14, I Worked in a Sweatshop. Here’s What I Think of Fashion Week.