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Fashion To Die For ARTIST STATEMENT

Fashion To Die For is my response to the news that a garment factory complex halfway around the world collapsed, trapping and killing thousands of workers. My goal to draw attention to the history of human rights violations in the production of the clothes we wear. This shameful history continues today as international corporations throw out the safety agreements put in place after the disaster to protect their profits during the current Coronavirus pandemic. 

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For 200 years the textile industry responded to demands for better pay and working conditions,  union organizing and laws regulating factory safety by running away - dumping the current  workforce for cheap labor in a new location. I witnessed the cycle of anti-union tactics, poor  working conditions and wages, empty factories and unemployment lines first-hand as a  garment worker and organizer in my twenties. Textile mills and garment factories gobbled up  and spit out each new wave of US immigrants, moved from New England west, from north to  south, and finally to third world countries, in a never ending search for cheap labor, less  regulation and greater profit. The history is not pretty. 

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On March 25, 1911 a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Company in New York City claimed the  lives of 146 garment workers. Most of the victims were young immigrant women who worked  long hours under sweatshop conditions. The owners of the factory had locked the door to  stairwell to avoid unauthorized breaks and the one poorly-constructed fire escape quickly  collapsed from the heat, spilling victims 100 feet to their deaths on the concrete sidewalk  below. The tragedy inspired union organizing in garment factories as well as legislation  regulating factory safety and working conditions in the U.S. 

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Fast-forward 102 years to the sweatshops of the global textile industry of the twenty first  century: 

On April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building, collapsed near Dhaka,  Bangladesh, claiming the lives of 1,129 people and injuring an additional 2,515. Retail shops  and a bank on the lower floors immediately closed after cracks were discovered in outer walls,  but garment factory owners in the building refused to close shop. The disaster is considered to  be the deadliest garment-factory accident in history. After thousands of workers marched  through Dhaka demanding safer working conditions, 70 manufacturers, mainly European,  signed a safety accord. North American companies with manufacturing in Bangladesh refused  to sign. Three month later 17 major American retailers, including Walmart, Gap, Target and  Macy’s, announced their own weaker plan, which does not include a legally binding  commitment to pay for safety improvements. It is time to pressure the clothing industry to put  basic human rights before profit. This is a global problem. It is our problem. Take a look at the  label on the clothing you are wearing.