Inside Italy's Shadow Economy
Within a distressed labor market, thousands of low-paid home workers create luxury garments without contracts or insurance.
By Elizabeth Paton and Milena Lazazzera
Sept. 20, 2018
BARI PROVINCE, Italy — In a second-floor apartment in the southern Italian town of Santeramo in Colle, a middle-aged woman sat in a black-padded chair this summer, hard at work at her kitchen table. She stitched carefully at a sophisticated woolen coat, the sort of style that will sell for 800 to 2,000 euros ($935 to $2,340) when it arrives in stores this month as part of the fall and winter collection of MaxMara, the Italian luxury fashion brand.
But the woman, who asked not to be named for fear that she could lose her livelihood, receives just €1 from the factory that employs her for each meter of fabric she completes.
“It takes me about one hour to sew one meter, so about four to five hours to complete an entire coat,” said the woman, who works without a contract, or insurance, and is paid in cash on a monthly basis. “I try to do two coats per day.”
The unregulated work she completes in her apartment is outsourced to her from a local factory that also manufactures outerwear for some of the best-known names in the luxury business, including Louis Vuitton and Fendi. The most she has ever earned, she said, was €24 for an entire coat.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/20/fashion/italy-luxury-shadow-economy.html
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