Who REALLY makes our costumes?

Michelle75 · 10-04-2007, 07:04 AM

This is another spin off to the personal protests.

Do we KNOW FOR SURE only designers are sewing the thousands of name brand costumes we buy that are shipped all over the world or are they designed by the "name brands" and than hand sewen by hundreds of hired children in EGYPT or TURKEY where there is a LARGE amount of child labor? Are we supporting child labor when we purchase these products?

Just asking b/c I don't know. I've never visited the shops.

artemisia_danst · 10-04-2007, 07:10 AM

ameera (pharaonics) and bella both say they have only "trained" people working in their factory (is what ameera calls it) or atelier (what bella calls it) and that the people working for them receive on the job training/

not sure what that means though.

and good question this bothers me too. and it's not the 1000 dollar costumes i'm worried about, it's the 3 dollar hipscarvs

Michelle75 · 10-04-2007, 07:18 AM

Quote:

it's not the 1000 dollar costumes i'm worried about, it's the 3 dollar hipscarvs

The thought makes me shudder. I can't help but have a sneaky suspesion in the back of my head that the "on the job training" may be for children or over worked mothers trying to raise a family with little to no pay. I could just be jaded though.

Lauren_ · 10-04-2007, 07:24 AM

The designers don't sew the costumes themselves, of course. I've only been to one atelier, Raqia Hassan's. It was in a tiny apartment. There were about 5 women sitting together doing beadwork in a small sitting room and the head seamstress had a small office next to that (I assume with a sewing machine). It looked like a fairly pleasant workplace to me, especially if the women liked each other! But of course I don't have any idea what the women's hours or rates of pay were. No children there.

I don't know about hipscarves, though, or what the difference between a factory and an atelier might be. And as we demand things cheaper and cheaper....

artemisia_danst · 10-04-2007, 07:35 AM

bella said something once about "this range of costumes all our workers can sew", and this range of costumes/this kind of beading is for the "experienced" seamstresses at our atelier, and hence more expensive...
i always have the impression she is talking about adults though.

i do know she is a "modern" person. she's got some pretty nasty things to say about her fellow country men/women that behave as if we were still in the middle ages (thats not what she said, but something with that meaning) in the way they dress/treat women/practice their religion... she said something like "they dishonour us, what must people think about turkey..."

so i'm hoping that goes for her work-welfare practices too.

Artemisia

CharlotteDesorgher · 10-04-2007, 07:38 AM

I've been to several designers' studios in Cairo (Madam Abla, Heckmet, Pharonics and Hanan) and I've only ever seen trained adult women working there. And I promise you, they all look very relaxed and happy. I felt quite envious of them actually, sitting around on the floor, sewing beads onto costumes and laughing and joking with each other. There seemed to be good cameraderie between them and their employers too.

artemisia_danst · 10-04-2007, 07:45 AM

got that same impression at madam hekmet and eman. i wouldnt call it relaxed though, definitely emans seamstresses where working their asses/hands off. and ammeera describing how a costume got through the factory (not the aterlier where they receive customers) in one day if need be, also seemed like they were working hard, not chatting drinking tea. but yes, adults, paid, and at least WITH a job. i'm assuming long hours. but nothing different from other jobs you would get in those areas i think.. and no gruesome child labour and locked up children...

'd be nice to know for sure though. and as said, i'm not worried about the designers, i'm worried about the ones turning out the cheap hipscarfs/skirts on mass... a fair deal of them seem to come from the cheap labour in the far east

Michelle75 · 10-04-2007, 08:27 AM

It sure is nice to hear this from you ladies who have been there. I feel more comfortable now.

zamora · 10-04-2007, 10:42 AM

i make all my own stuff, if i get stuck, bayla zena helps me.
z

cbarros · 10-04-2007, 10:58 AM

There is some work done outside the atelier by piece in Egypt that I know about. I was visiting at a costumer's and was watching her people working on the costumes while I was there. They had a large order of costumes for a troupe to get out quickly, so they had cut all the pieces, sewn them up, then a group of women came in the afternoon where they were given the pieces and beads (whatever decorations to go on the costume), instructions on what needed to be done regarding the design, then they all went to their homes to do the hand-work. Since the group was so friendly, I kinda thought they'd probably all sit around doing it together, but who knows.

Other then what I saw, I know nothing about pay arrangements, etc.

sabrinabellydancer · 10-05-2007, 02:27 AM

i do know that turquoise has their own employees and from my conversations with the owner, the working conditions and treatment in their facilities is much better than the average employment conditions in egypt.

Bellydancingcaroline · 10-05-2007, 04:06 AM

I too have taken a tour around all the major costumiers in Cairo, never seen any children. I suspect one of us would have seen them at least once, had they been working there. Can you imagine an elabourate system of trip wires and bells to alert the workers to hide the children?

vilia · 10-05-2007, 07:48 AM

I imagine this type of sewing and beadwork would be a little too complex for most little children. But why are we just worrying about costumes? Just about every other piece of cheap clothing we buy is much more likely to be using child labor.

Just an FYI about designers in general, which may not apply to the costumers, many don't even know how to make a pattern or sew! They are the ones who come up with the ideas, draw the pictures and find the fabrics, but as far as taking it from 2D to 3D, deciding what can and cannot work ... that's the patternmaker's job. The sewing, of course, is the job of the sample makers in the workroom and the factory workers in production. I know because I was a patternmaker in the industry for about ten years. That may not apply so much to the couture designers, some of whom have been top notch tailors.

kamilia · 10-05-2007, 03:03 PM

Egyptian children look like they grow up quickly, so I wouldn't put any task (including bead work) past them.

My guide at the pyramids (who was driving 4 horses at once and whipping them like any good Egyptian man should) looked like he was four years old. He had his own little set of stirrups attached to the adult saddle; cute and sad at the same time

I'm really thinking of making all my own costumes (and clothes for that matter). Why can't we leave our children alone?

mekyria · 10-06-2007, 06:29 AM

I think that the age restrictions for working in the Middle-East are not like what we're used to over here. I have no fact or figures, but I can imagine that children at the age of 12-14 are considered adults over there.

I don't want to support child labor, so I decided a while ago not to buy stuff that seemed dodgy to me. I'm pretty sure that the high end designers have good working conditions and only hire girls that are old enough.

meissoun · 10-06-2007, 07:07 AM

Seamstresses at SIM's:

And hey, it's also a work opportunity for more conservative women because they don't ave to deal with many men

MEISSOUN

Lauren_ · 10-06-2007, 07:21 AM

It is a point that kids are seen as more grown-up in other cultures. All over Cairo I saw boys of 13 or so working. They fetched the tea, led the camels, etc. There was also a younger girl, maybe 16, who helped show us costumes at one of the factories, now that I think of it. She was a member of the owner's family.

I don't want to romanticize, but in a culture where lots of businesses are locally owned, it's not unusual to see family members helping out at a young age. It's part of the family business. Even here in the states, I've been in family-owned restaurants where young kids helped in the kitchen, filled water glasses, brought breadsticks, etc. I used to pay my daughter to stuff envelopes and file when she was about 9, she enjoyed working with Mommy.

But...does that attitude toward children carry over into dangerous or unpleasant work environments or outside of the family? Are the kids sweating long hours somewhere on our behalf? I don't know.

I agree that it's more likely to be happening with our jeans and T-shirts than our costumes.

carolynn · 10-07-2007, 02:49 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by artemisia_danst

and it's not the 1000 dollar costumes i'm worried about, it's the 3 dollar hipscarvs

China.
i saw a "Made in China"-stamped shipping carton in a costume shop and asked. yep, the cheap ones are made in China.
this was a no-name shop in the Khan El Khalili.

cbarros · 10-11-2007, 03:16 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by carolynn

China.
i saw a "Made in China"-stamped shipping carton in a costume shop and asked. yep, the cheap ones are made in China.
this was a no-name shop in the Khan El Khalili.

I know I saw bunches of hip scarves selling in Hong Kong when I was there last summer . . . so I am not surprised that people would be importing from China. I didn't buy any from HK though but I probably should have so I could compare.

One thing I do think is funny is that I purchased a crocheted scarf from Sam Moon's in Dallas . . . and a friend of mine had a similar one she bought off a street vendor in Italy, which she was using as a hip scarf!

bellydancerinfo · 10-11-2007, 03:41 PM

Bottom line-
The costumes are cheeper FOR A REASON.

Labor is not treated as well as labor in the US. No health care, no retirement, no socail services, no unemployement, no medical leave, no holiday pay. It doesnt matter the age. in poor countries, any money is good money.

If you wish to purchase costumes from over seas you are not supporting your fellow artists in the US - you chose to pay less and therefor allow those workers to not be taken care of as well as if you paid a fair price for that designer/sewers care. I will never get into designing and selling because I can not get a price for my work that will pay for my well being-- because everyone would rather purchase over seas for less than the supplies cost me to make it.

So - buy where you like. Just know the reality of what it means.

I like to support locally as much as I can. the extra price tag comes with that. But I shop and purchase everywhere too. so we all contribute to this.

lizajuk · 10-11-2007, 05:39 PM

The vast majority of the world's good quality leather footballs were and still are sewn by youngsters in Pakistan. Childrens charities got involved in trying to stop child labour in such factories.
In some cases these teenage boys were the main breadwinner ..mum's a widow etc...and said excuse me...now we starve. So it was back to work, boys BUT hopefully with better conditions and some free education.Just as in the Britain of the 18th and early 19th century, there was a demand for the cheap, nim