Luxury brands quietly sourcing Indian embroiderers for their goods

For years Dior, Saint Laurent and other fashion brands have been quietly using Indian embroiderers, while offering little in the way of employment protection

At the top of a staircase covered in dirt and sequins, several dozen Indian artisans hunched over yards of fabric, using needles to embroider garments for the world’s most powerful fashion brands. They sewed without health benefits in a multiroom factory with caged windows and no emergency exit, completing subcontracted orders for international designers. When night fell, some slept on the floor.

They were not working for a factory employed by fast fashion brands: companies whose business model is premised on producing trendy clothing as cheaply as possible.

Unknown to most consumers, the expensive, glittering brands of runways in Paris and Milan