FairlyForgedTHE JOURNEY FROM START

FINISH

This was a quest to find a reason to forge (that was also relevant to design )

Plenty of others have explored this area successfully. One man designed a website displaying his own fashion ranges in the style of the top French fashion designers. His work was so good he got offered a job by one them.

But my favourite example is a counterfeiter who engineered a way to get their Chanel handbags through customs by designing a logo that only revealed the double ‘c’ trademark after the purchaser cut the dashed lines.

But what was I going to do?

Forgery is rife in the design worldSkilled workers and machines make goods that are passed off under a brand name. Outsourcing has complicated the production chain and there are now so many channels that a product passes through that we don’t know who’s involved in the making of it. This lack of transparency makes it relatively easy for exploitation to happen, particularly in the fashion world, where sweatshops are in abundance.

In some cases brands plead ignorance, saying they were not aware of any wrong doing because the manufacturer who won the contract subcontracted it to a sweatshop in order to make a profit. There are still sweatshops in this country, most recently dispatches discovered one in Leicester, where workers were paid £2 an hour to make clothes for brands like New Look. It’s easy to shirk responsibility because it’s ambiguous as to who is accountable.

Does forgery exist in design?

The consumer even comes into this debate because if we knowingly buy products whose price indicates unfair labour aren’t we partly to blame? But as a brand’s power and profit margin grows, shouldn’t the workers see some of the benefit?

I had been reading about the counterfeit culture when I came across a short extract by Tim Philipps*. He argued that buying counterfeits as a way of rebelling against a brands maltreatment of workers is flawed because the majority of child labour happens in the counterfeit industry. The absence of regulations and monitoring make working conditions more dangerous.

*Tim Phillips, Knockoff the Deadly trade in Counterfeit Culture, Kogan Page Limited

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This argument sparked the trajectory of my entire project. I had the idea to subvert this and create a counterfeit item that was fairly traded, more so than the brand item. I read one article about Topshop workers in Mauritius being paid 20 pence per hour, while the owner Philip Green earns millions, regularly appearing on Britain’s rich list. Could a copy redistribute the wealth more evenly between the workers involved?

The forger as a contemporary Robin Hood

“I think the idea of making counterfeit items but paying a fair wage is a great idea and would be a great way of challenging the arguments put forwards that increasing wages has a big impact on cost” Murray Worthy, War on Want

Every stage of production would have to be fair trade including the fabric. Ordering from abroad was causing communication problems, and the distance between me and the companies would mean it would be hard to know what was going on. The copies would be made in Britain.

Made in Britain The government is looking to manufacturing as one way out of the recession. Britain is great at manufacturing but in some sectors such as the fashion industry our contribution is minimal. In fact over 90% of our clothes are made outside of the UK. This is not a demand to have all our clothes made in Britain, but rather suggesting that there should be more of a balance.

At this point, I was reminded that the best forgers copied master artists, not average artists. High street is mainstream, nothing special. What I should be aiming for is the luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Prada.

But I was nervous that if I aimed for premium brands then my reason to forge would be extinguished because there would be no reason for them to be involved with cheap labour/cost cutting.

The top brands after all rely on locally skilled artisans to make supreme quality garments. This is how they justify the price because it takes into account the cost of European labour and premium materials.

Luxury Fashion

Off the shelf

Bespoke Haute Couture

Premium

Mass Luxury

Haute couture is not profitable. The cost of materials such as imported rare feathers and specially trained ateliers working in Paris make up much of the expense. Haute couture is made to measure and enables clients to alter and customise their clothes.

What I didn’t realise was that there are several tiers with a brand like Dior. There’s the haute couture range, which is what we see on the catwalk shows and then various ranges that shoot off from this that come under mass luxury.

Surely these brands wouldn’t be involved with cheap labour, when they sell items for £1000s of pounds. Wrong. To my surprise it turns out they do. These deluxe brands are the masters of deception. They make their money on the mass luxury items. Although your garment might have a “made in Italy” label inside it, it is no guarantee. Sometimes items have been made in China and shipped to Italy where the label is stitched in.

“Made in Italy”

Gok Wan recently revealed in a Channel 4 documentary titled ‘Made in China’, that all the bras made in a factory in China have one level of quality whether it be for Primark or Calvin Klein. We are talking HUGE markups. They have also been known to lower the quality of materials to boost profits. Yes we pay for the ‘aura’ or desirability of the brand, but the price should also cover other factors such as quality materials and fair wages.

What about quality and fair wages?

In an Italian town called Prato, a large percentage of the population are Chinese. Prato is where a lot of the designer garments are made, and the Chinese emigrate there to work in factories, producing premium products and getting paid as little as 2 Euros an hour. The objection is that the same item is being sold for the same price despite the huge difference in wages between an Italian skilled worker and a Chinese one. Neither the consumer, nor the worker see the benefits of these increased profit margins. This was discussed in a LA Times article by Tracy Wilkinson, titles Slaving in the lap of of luxury.*

*http://articles.latimes.com/2008/feb/20/world/fg-madeinitaly20

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A n interesting point

Denis Dutton makes about forgery is that even if the copy is

indistinguishable from the original, the provenance would still be different. The

story of how a painting came into being would not be the same, thus making the two artworks

different. What’s interesting here is that some luxury brands create a misleading provenance of their mass luxury goods by using the image of haute couture. And actually a fair trade copy

could perhaps achieve the provenance that these brands only portray as a fantasy.

The copy in this sense could be more authentic than the

original.

Can A Fake Be More Authentic Than An Original?

So I had decided on High End fashion and now needed to select a specific item made using cheap labour. I set about contacting people with an interest or knowledge of working conditions in the fashion industry.

I e-mailed author Dana Thomas who described in her book Deluxe* how she witnessed a handbag being made in China, the total cost of which amounted to £120. The next day she witnessed the same bag being sold for £1200 by an Italian brand that adamantly denies any involvement with Chinese factories.

I posted a letter to Shanghai to a marketing consultant called Paul French. He was quoted in the Korea Times as saying he witnessed many top brands being made in factories in China; “LV, Burberry...all of them. You name it,”* However it was becoming obvious that I was not going to find a specific item in time.

I contacted human rights organisations such as War on Want, but noone I asked was able to name specific items.

*Thomas, D, deluxe: ho wluxury lost it’s lustre, Penguin books, 2008* http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/art/2011/08/123_91979.html

Search for an Item

A family friend lived in China for a year and bought her fake bags out there. This Gucci handbag is meant to be a Chinese factory overrun. This sounded too good to be true and part of me wanted to get on with trying to replicate it. But whoever sold it to her wanted to make money so what was to stop them lying about it being an overrun? There was no proof other than word of mouth.

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By this point I was getting frustrated that I couldn’t find the information I needed to develop my project. One charity emailed me to say the information I wanted was carefully protected by brands to maintain their credibility.

The project now became an exploration into the possibility of manufacturing one luxury item in Britain and being transparent about how it was made and the costs involved.

Knitted items might be a good product to replicate, what with our strong historical connection with the wool industry. I selected an Aran knit jumper. It was “made in Italy” despite the Brand’s image of Britishness and the fact that the Aran sweater originated from this country. It was being sold for £1195, which at the time I thought was extortionate. What the copy could do is restore the authenticity of the item. It could be more open about the cost of each stage of manufacture.

Earlier on in the year I attended a seminar by Dr. Bridget Connors, who is conducting research into the precarious working conditions within the creative industries. One common assumption is that just because you love what you do, you will do it for low cost or free. Students experience this with internships, and often the most profitable companies are the most exploitative because there are “plenty of fish in the sea.”

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One of the first things that dawned on me was how little knitters are often paid. Many were asking for £40 per jumper. I never considered what this would be in an hourly rate, but a basic hand knit jumper takes 20 hours, which works out as £2 an hour. People knit because they love it, but it shouldn’t justify a sub minimum wage. It can be the same for high-end knitwear, where professional knitters are usually paid per garment not hour. Although I was informed that brands would in all likelihood employ a knitwear designer, it still surprised me how little freelancers received.

Knitting

I set about contacting knitters asking whether it would be possible to replicate this from an image. Knitters started e-mailing knitters, Denise even asked her contacts on twitter. She replied saying it was impossible without a pattern to work from. So I set about contacting pattern writers, knitting societies and asking in wool shops.

After 4 weeks attempting to secure a pattern writer and knitter I finally had both ready to go. The pattern writer was in the middle of writing a knitting book and Victoria the knitter had experience knitting designer knitwear.

Finding a pattern writer and knitter

I had been in contact with several wool specialists. The original wool was a 50 50 mix of cotton and merino. I was informed that Britain only has small flocks of merino, but alpaca would be a good substitute, on a par in quality and super soft. But there are no cotton processing plants in the UK. I e-mailed a pioneering hemp processing plant for a more environmentally friendly alternative to cotton asking about hemp yarn. They replied saying that hemp yarn is only made in China.

If I wanted the yarn to be British I would have to go for pure wool with no plant fibres, which would affect the aesthetic. I did have another option, which was to get a special mix spun for me, but it would require a minimum order of 6kg and I only needed 700g.

“There is no textile grade Hemp produced in Europelet alone the UK. All the production is in China”John Hobson, Hemp technology

Sourcing the wool In the end I ordered the wool from the Natural Fibre Company. They informed me that they usually pay double the recommendations to farmers. It’s a mix of organic Corriedale and alpaca; the quality arguably higher than the original.

“The Natural Fibre Company can pay more and do so: nearly double the Wool Board price recommendations in most cases”

Steve Vasco-Knight

We want to know the story behind our food: where it comes from, how it was made and (where relevant) how the animals were treated. So why shouldn’t it be the same for other products? This sweater was an exploration into the cost of making quality products in Britain. It was an attempt to produce a 100% British garment from material to manufacture in order to demonstrate that luxury design can be made in Britain, paying fair wages and still be profitable.

This is the price of the jumper if it was produced in a batch like the Burberry one. It could retail for a minimum of £1180 if the mark up was doubled.

However, I received an e-mail from James Laxton, a wool specialist who confirmed the Burberry sweater was machine knit. This would significantly change the number of knitting hours.

“The original did look machine knit”James Laxton, British wool manufacturer9/5/12

“This sweater is made by machine”ReneeKnitsABit, Ravelry Forum

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Batch Price?FAIRLY FORGED

BATCH OF 50

PER ITEMJUMPERWOOL £45.00PATTERN £0.70TECHNICAL EDITOR 6hrs/50 £1.20 KNITTING 50 hours £400.00LABEL £1.00TRANSPORT £15.00

DUFFLE BAG PACKAGINGCANVAS £1.86CALICO £0.59PULLEY £0.14EYELETS £0.15LEATHER LOGO £1.00(PLUS ETCHING) £3.00 BAG ASSEMBLY 2hours £16.00TRANSPORT £6.00

TOTAL INCL 20% VAT £685.97 Min RRP of JUMPER £1179.94

FAIRLY FORGEDHand knit

Min RRP £1180

ORIGINALRRP £1195

Let’s say at an estimate it could be done in roughly a third of the time. So it took 50 hours to hand knit, but let’s say 20 to machine knit. This would mean the cost of knitting would be £160 instead of £400. The machine knit interpretation could retail at minimum of £605

I envisage it being a research space where each interpretation of a designer item, not necessarily fashion, would broaden our knowledge of British industries and act as a database for people like designers, retailers, economists to input and utilise information. Each garment that is made could be documented and published where all the findings and cost breakdowns would be made available.

Where could this go?

The fashion retailer Zara started as a group of In-house designers in Spain. They took inspiration from other high street fashion ranges and produced interpretations, with a turn around of 2 weeks. Fairly forged could offer one off interpretations of luxury items, utilising British skilled workers and manufacturers. People with skills could register as a fair forger and if you want an interpretation made up you could register your request.

FAIRLY FORGED

ONE OFF

JUMPERWOOL £95.00PATTERN 3.5 hrs £35.00TECHNICAL EDITOR 6hrs £60.00 KNITTING 70 hours £560.00LABEL £2.00TRANSPORT £20.00

DUFFLE BAG PACKAGINGCANVAS £4.00CALICO £3.00PULLEY £0.14EYELETS £0.15LEATHER LOGO £0.40(PLUS ETCHING) £6.00BAG ASSEMBLY 2hours £16.00TRANSPORT £20.00

TOTAL INCL 20% VAT RRP WITH BAG £986.028

The fairly forged price for a one off hand knit interpretation:

(Including 15% commission)

£1135

This jumper is expensive as a one off, but by putting the consumer and maker directly in contact there would be no need to cover retail mark ups. Maybe there is a 15% commission that goes towards maintaining a website or the publication of the research. These one off items could bring bespoke back to mass luxury and offer high quality and support skilled workers in this country.