Reflections in Light of Boohoo’s Latest Slave Labor Claims
Boohoo Group is under fire, as it is every once in a while, over slave labor claims. At other times it is lauded for its wokeness: for example, when Black plus-size hijabi model Ilwaad Marsal was recruited for Pretty Little Thing earlier this fall. Unfortunately, using exploitative labor practices and appearing “woke” online are not mutually exclusive phenomena — in fact, they work well together.
It is completely possible for a company to claim diversity points by putting a few Black people at the forefront, while also ripping off the work of Black designers like Fisayo Longe. It is possible for them to create Modest Clothing line while exploiting South Asian Muslim labor populations. When we shift the focus to the visual — the face in the thumbnail or the website — we lose sight of what matters, which is where the bigger mistakes happen. When we focus on the optics instead of what is being depicted, we lose sight of the site where the bigger mistakes happen.
“We are interested to learn how you intend to factor minimum wage costs into your price negotiation with suppliers to prevent them from being put in a position where illegally low wages are paid,” the UK’s Environmental Audit Committee writes to Boohoo in the wake of the backlash. In the March 4th letter to Mahmud Kamani, Boohoo’s cofounder and Boohoo Group’s Executive Chairman, the committee asks them to list their Tier 1 and Tier 2 suppliers, as well as the Leicester garment factories they allegedly stopped working with. Notably, back in 2018, the EAC flagged Boohoo as one of the UK’s least sustainable fashion brands.
Boohoo Group, which encompasses polyester playgrounds like Nasty Gal, Pretty Little Thing, MissPap, and of course Boohoo and Boohoo Men, has been notoriously opaque about its labor practices. Earlier this summer, the company’s market value plummeted temporarily after reports surfaced that workers in a Leiciter factory were paid as little as £3.50, or $4.40, an hour. When UK based charity Fashion Revolution released their 2020 Fashion Transparency Index, which rates companies based on how transparent they are about their social and environmental practices, Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing scored a grim 9%. (Notably, Fashionova scored an even lower 2%.) In a more specific traceability survey, about whether companies disclose information about their supplier lists, processing facilities, factory conditions and other related data, Boohoo and Pretty Little Thing scored a 0%.
Who makes Boohoo’s clothes? No one seems to know, really.
The fact that we know more about the faces behind the products than the products themselves is no coincidence. The ignorance between us and what we wear starts well before we fumble for the inseams that trap the product label. Although the conglomerate might struggle to pay its workers, it seems to have no limit to the resources it has to spend on collaborations with British influencers, American popstars, and Australian models. (Even you can apply to be a Pretty Little thing ambassador: a pink, unicorn stamped graphic on the website says so.) Also generous is Boohoo to its top executives — this summer, the group planned to reward its leadership with a 150 million euro payout if they significantly increased the company’s market value within three years. A diverse array of Instagram influences are no doubt part of that marketing plan.
This question of optics has come up for me again and again in the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests this summer. It makes me wonder about the gap between the public facing image and what actually happens (or continues to happen) behind the scenes. If a founder or CEO symbolically steps down — or in some cases, steps down to step back up again — is the balance of power in a company shifted? If a sociologist you distinctly remember as hostile to your interjections starts teaching a race class, because it is now trendy, because students will sign up for it, because it will exempt him from criticism, does the institution in question improve? If Ilwaad Marsal appears on a billboard one day does it mean anything for your opportunities as Black Muslim woman?
If we care more about being represented, don’t we necessarily care less about being?
Our obsession with optics is at best detracting and at worst, like when it comes to troubling factory conditions, dangerous. I’m not arguing that visual representation in advertisements, TV shows, and other visual spaces shouldn’t exist. I’m just arguing that it doesn’t matter — at least, not as much as I once thought it did — and that it is furthermore no substitute for actual politics, or material improvement for the populations “represented.” A system in which Ilwaad Marhsall can give Boohoo impunity, Matt James can save the Bachelor franchise, and Amanda Gordon can legitimize the Biden regime is a very superficial one.
