“Fashion is a crime that should have a good alibi,” Diana Vreeland once said. And she was right. No one hides ugliness quite like luxury fashion. No one perfumes the stench of exploitation so skillfully as those who work with silk, gold, and the illusion of handmade craftsmanship. Until the curtain falls. And we see that behind the red carpet lies not just threads and buffalo horn buttons, but sweat, sleeping at the sewing machine, and the breaking of human backs—literally and figuratively.
Valentino. Once a name synonymous with class and Roman decadence, now it smells more like burnt plastic than damask rose. The Italian court has just placed Valentino Bags Lab under a one-year curatorship. The reason? Exploitation in the supply chain. It sounds technical, but the reality is far less elegant. Workshops run by Chinese owners forced seamstresses to sleep next to the machines and work nonstop, in conditions violating every health and safety regulation. And we’re not talking about some obscure company on the fringes of the global market, but a firm operating within one of Italy’s most recognizable luxury brands. But surely the “Made in Italy” label forgives all, right?
This is just another act in the same tragic play: Dior, Armani, Alviero Martini—all have gone through this courtroom or at least the hall of shame. They all promised “stricter controls,” transparency, and “full respect for human rights.” Too bad that transparency ends the moment you start asking about the real working conditions in subcontracted workshops hidden somewhere between Milan and Prato.
Does luxury have to be this dirty? Not really. But it’s easier to sell a myth than reality. “Made in Italy” is less a guarantee of quality and more opium for the masses. Who cares if a bag costing four thousand euros was sewn in conditions closer to a Bangladeshi sweatshop than a Renaissance Florentine atelier? The important thing is that it was designed by a “creative director” with an artistic expression and shot in a palace where Sabaudian princes once held their orgies.
The hypocrisy here is baroque in scale. While fashion campaigns preach diversity, inclusivity, and empowerment, behind the scenes, laborers—usually migrant women—are robbed of sleep, rights, and basic dignity. They are the silent artisans of someone else’s wealth, the ghost workforce behind every runway fantasy. Their voices are not part of the brand story. They’re not “on mood boards.” They are buried beneath them.
We talk endlessly about sustainability, about circularity, about the noble future of fashion. But how can an industry be sustainable when it is still built on structural violence? We recycle fabrics while recycling the same systems of abuse. We greenwash a garment and redwash the blood off the floor. It’s all part of the performance—an opera of illusion where even ethics are just another costume.
Let’s not kid ourselves—luxury doesn’t promise justice. It promises to look good. And it looks good even when the lining is soaked in human exhaustion.
Valentino promises change, controls, a “new chapter.” Well, we know those chapters already. They are full of empty declarations, printed in Bodoni font on satin paper. But the content remains the same: beauty sewn to measure with ugliness. So next time you buy a handbag for five thousand euros, ask not only about the leather—but ask about the blood. Who knows, maybe it matches the color of your new nail polish.
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