Robots Don’t Make Your Clothes

Fast fashion or couture…you still need two hands and the will to live. A brief breakdown of fashion production from factory to our closets.

If you’re here it’s because you care, even just a little bit, about the state of fashion and overconsumption. You love a new outfit but OMG maybe 6,000 new items a day from Shein is doing the most. To love fashion and ignore the hands that make our favorite designer dresses (and the knockoffs) is disrespectful to the art of sewing.

Before Hanifa could launch her incredibly breathtaking collection of knit dresses the knitting machine needed to be created. Without taking us too far into the past, the first version of the machine was created in 1553. It would take every decade up until today for humans to create a more industrial version of the standard knitting machine. We still need someone to thread the fast paced machines, but jobs were lost.

Before the industrial revolution everyone and their momma knew how to sew and knit. The skill to sew and tailor was putting women at the top of the marriage lists in early centuries. Factories started hiring more women seamstresses during the Marshall Field’s era in Chicago. Men needed tailored suits and sport coats and women were making their own a-line skirts and evening dresses. If you were a skilled pattern maker or seamstress during the boom of fashion production in the US you could make a living working in some factories and retail stores.

Today, you might earn less than $3 a day to sew 100 t-shirts. If this number sounds outrageous think about the factories that produce most of the world’s apparel waste and whose sewing these rags together.