Kate Moss, Topshop and those sweatshops we suspected

At last, our own suspicions that Kate Moss's range for Topshop is being produced in factories which exploit vulnerable textile workers have been confirmed.

Back at the end of April 2007, fuk.co.uk reported that we couldn't endorse Ms Moss's range for Topshop as we could find no guarantee that the clothes had been made in decent working conditions and were not in fact made by children.

In a radio interview with LBC, fuk.co.uk's editor was the only audible voice in the fashion industry to go on record and speak out against the manufacturing processes involved, Topshop's refusal to sign the Ethical Trading Initiative and blatant long-term disregard for workers' rights and transparency.

Since The Sunday Times newpaper challenged Mr Green on Saturday August 11th, the billionaire businessman, who lives in Monaco, is reported to have said he will look into the allegations that factories manufacturing the range are demanding workers work 70 hours a week and that many are migrant workers who are forced to pay fees for jobs.

Arcadia's practices have concerned many watchdogs in the fashion industry including Labour Behind The Label and Clean Up Fashion. Philip Green is renowned for his lavish lifestyle and insiders tell us that they personally witnessed unrelenting levels of ostentation at his 55th birthday party earlier this year which is reported to have cost Green a cool £5 million.

Clean Up Fashion's Martin Hearson told us a few months ago:
"Topshop is part of the Arcadia Group, one of the worst offenders on workers' rights. When we surveyed major high street retailers to find out what they were doing to ensure workers get paid a decent wage, Arcadia's response was pitiful."

fuk.co.uk, along with workers' rights groups, has been questioning Topshop for some time now, but as Martin states, the reaction from the fashion group has been without doubt unsatisfactory and, in fuk.co.uk's experience, uncaring.

The fact is that even if Philip Green and Kate Moss now jump on an ethical bandwagon, their original intention - to make as much money as possible with scant regard for the workers whose toil results in profits for themselves - who is going to believe them? As they say at the Embankment tube station, Mind The Gap, this hole is so wide even billionaires can't negotiate their way across.

Words: Marian Buckley

Read more here:

http://www.cleanupfashion.co.uk/companies/arcadia.php.

http://www.fuk.co.uk/blog/marian/kate_moss_topshop_range_made_by_children

http://www.fuk.co.uk/blog/marian/ethical_evolution_topshop

http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article2241665.ece