One of the unhappiest spectacles to be seen on our streets today is the image of a woman swathed in shapeless black from head to toe, peering out at the world through a tiny slit. The burka is not just an instrument of oppression of women and claustral repression of their liberty and their beauty; not just a token of egregious male cruelty and tragically cowed female submission. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
Bert White was a frail-looking, weedy pale-faced boy, fifteen years of age and about four feet nine inches in height. His trousers were part of a suit that he had once worn for best, but that was so long ago that they had become too small for him, fitting rather tightly and scarcely reaching the top of his patched and broken hobnailed boots. The knees and the bottoms of the legs of his trousers had been patched with square pieces of cloth, several shades darker than the original fabric, and these patches were now all in rags. His coat was several sizes too large for him and hung about him like a dirty ragged sack. He was a pitiable spectacle of neglect and wretchedness as he sat there on an upturned pail, eating his bread and cheese with fingers that, like his clothing, were grimed with paint and dirt. Robert Tressell, The Ragged Trousered Philanthropist pp14-15
Owen’s heart seemed to stop as he heard the child’s question and listened for Nora’s answer, and the question was not to be answered at all just then, for at that moment they heard someone running up the stairs and presently the door was unceremoniously thrown open and Charley Linden rushed into the house, out of breath, hatless, and crying piteously. His clothes were old and ragged; they had been patched at the knees and elbows, but the patches were tearing away from the rotting fabric into which they had been sewn. He had on a pair of stockings full of holes through which the skin was showing. The soles of his boots were worn through at one side right to the uppers … ibid.
It gives one a strange feeling to be wearing such clothes. I had worn bad enough things before, but nothing at all like these; they were not merely dirty and shapeless they had – how to express it? – a gracelessness, a patina of antique filth, quite different from mere shabbiness. They were the sort of clothes you see on a bootlace seller, or a tramp. An hour later, in Lambeth, I saw a hang-dog man, obviously a tramp, coming towards me, and when I looked again it was myself, reflected in a shop window. The dirt was plastering my face already. Dirt is a great respecter of persons; it lets you alone when you are well dressed, but as soon as your collar is gone it flies towards you from all directions. George Orwell, Down and Out in Paris and London
For the first time I noticed, too, how the attitude of women varies with a man’s clothes. When a badly dressed man passed them they shudder away from him with a quite frank movement of disgust, as though he were a dead cat. Clothes are powerful things. Dressed in a tramp’s clothes it is very difficult at any rate or the first day, not to feel that you are genuinely degraded. ibid.
The paupers talked interestingly about workhouse life. They told me, among other things, that the thing they really hated in the workhouse, as a stigma of charity, is the uniform; if the men could wear their own clothes, or even their own caps and scarves, they would not mind being paupers. ibid.
You may have three halfpence in your pocket and not a prospect in the world, and only the corner of a leaky bedroom to go home to; but in your new clothes you can stand on the street corner, indulging in a private daydream of yourself as Clark Gable or Greta Garbo, which compensates you for a great deal. George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier ch5
Although golf was originally restricted to wealthy, overweight Protestants, today it’s open to anybody who owns hideous clothing. Dave Barry
I want you to shape up and put some clothes on. Panic in Needle Park 1971 starring Al Pacino & Kitty Winn & Alan Vint & Richard Bright & Kiel Martin & Michael McClanathan & Warren Finnerty & Marcia Jean Kurtz & Raul Julia & Angie Ortega et al, director Jerry Schatzberg, her to him
Cheap clothing: we go undercover in the factories making big high street brands, paying their workers less than half the national living wage. This isn’t Bangladesh or China, these are factories right here in the heart of Leicester in Britain. Dispatches: Undercover: Britain’s Cheap Clothes, Channel 4 2017
Dispatches went undercover in Leicester in 2010 we found factory workers being paid £2.50 an hour making clothes for high street fashion chain New Look. ibid.
The true cost of fast fashion … We now expose the harsh conditions in the warehouses dispatching your online fashion orders. We’re inside the multi-million-pound business where having a sick child could cost you your job. Dispatches: Undercover: Britain’s Cheap Clothes II
It’s boomtime in Boohoo … Every order comes through their Burnley warehouse … Twelve-hour shifts … Agency recruits don’t have the same rights as company staff … ‘It’s three strikes and you’re out’ … ibid.
Are you wearing lady-clothes? The Office US s3e19: The Negotiation, Darryl to Michael
This is a story about clothing. It’s about the clothes we wear, the people who make these clothes, and the impact that it’s having on our world. It’s a story about greed and fear, power and poverty. The True Cost, 2015
Today we only make about 3% and the other 97% is outsourced. ibid.
Cutting corners and disregarding safety measures have become an accepted part of doing business in this new model. ibid.
‘An eight-storey building has collapsed near the capital of Dhaka killing more than seventy people.’ ibid. news
Rana Plaza: ‘Two weeks after the catastrophe and the death toll now stands at a staggering of 931 making it the worst garment industry disaster in history.’ ibid.
‘Bangladesh is now the second largest apparel exporter after China … Unions have limited power.’ ibid.
‘I have formed a union at work … We had an altercation with the managers. After the altercation, managers closed the door, 30-40 attacked us and beat us up.’ ibid. garment union president
The most labour-dependent industry on earth. ibid.
Over 80 billion pieces of new clothing each year. ibid.
Fashion today is the number two-most polluting industry on Earth, second only to the oil industry. ibid.
A perfectly engineered nightmare for the workers trapped inside. ibid.
An amazing thief brings New York’s garment district to its knees. He steals the shirts off merchants’ backs. Masterminds e50: Off the Rack, History 2003-2007
Hundreds of businesses had somehow been robbed of up to 20% of their merchandise. ibid.
A little known building superintendent Petre Casesse found a way to steal over fifty million dollars in high-end fashions. ibid.
He masters the art of lock-picking. ibid.
Joseph, where did you get those clothes? Hummingbird aka Redemption 2013 starring Jason Statham & Agata Buzek & Christian Brassington & Vicky McClure & Benedict Wong & Ger Ryan & Victoria Bewick & Sang Lui & Lillie Buttery & Youssef Kerkour et al, director Steven Knight, Sister Cristina
I didn’t care about what people thought of me. And I didn’t care what I thought of myself. So I would go to the far reaches of my dark side and pull these horrors out of my soul and put them on the catwalk. McQueen, Lee, 2018
St Martin’s was the place to go, but what I liked about it was the freedom of expression. ibid.
I just thought, What have I unleashed? ibid. St Martin’s tutor
You just don’t move forward if you play safe. ibid. Lee
The king of yob couture. ibid. newspaper article
Scottish designer Alexander McQueen has taken over at Givenchy and is designing the 1997 collection. ibid. French television news
Sod the lot of ya. I do what I like. ibid. Lee
Gucci group swoops for Alexander McQueen. ibid. newspaper article
Everything I’m reverting to is darker. ibid. Lee
Lee was HIV positive. ibid. friend
11 February 2010: On the eve of his mother’s funeral, Lee Alexander McQueen took his life. ibid.
The average woman has 22 items in her wardrobe that are never worn. Cherry Healey: Secrets of the Sales, W 2018