In support of the Tamil Nadu Declaration and Framework of Action, Fashion Revolution have partnered with Tamil Nadu Alliance to try and combat the opaque and disjointed supply chains that exist throughout the textile and apparel industries. Within their report ‘Out of Site: A call for transparency from field to fabric’, Fashion Revolution have conducted research around 62 major fashion brands and retailers to uncover the harmful and exploitative working conditions that thrive behind the lack of transparency.  

As customers and consumers, the information we predominantly receive surrounding the production of our textiles and apparel, references suppliers involved in the final production stages, i.e., cutting, sewing, packaging. Beyond ‘tier one’ of the industries’ supply chains is where there remains an alarming absence of information concerning who made our fibres and textiles and under what conditions. 

The lack of transparency around where ‘fabrics are knitted or woven, textiles are treated and laundered, yarns are spun and dyed, fibres are sorted and processed, and raw materials are grown and picked’, can and have allowed exploitative working conditions whilst ‘obscuring who has the power and responsibility to redress them’. The Out of Sight report determined that only 31% of the 62 brands/retailers reviewed are disclosing just some of their textile production sites and only 1 brand out of the 62 disclose all their textile production sites. 

A few examples of exploitative working conditions that take place behind these muddy supply chains include forced and child labour, excessive overtime and withheld wages, lack of PPE exposing workers to harmful chemicals, unhealthy and unsafe living and working environments and deceptive recruitment practices known to take advantage of those living within poverty. 

Through the campaign titled ‘Who Made My Fabric?’ launched earlier this year, Fashion Revolution are calling upon brands for greater transparency, asking citizens across the globe to demand as such, and calling for producers to tell us; ‘I Made Your Fabric’. By using the power of social media and providing an easy-to-use platform for people to reach out to brands individually, requesting disclosure beyond first tier manufacturing, Fashion Revolution are striving for us to ‘connect more closely with the people who produce the fabrics and raw materials we wear’. They have also created various ‘Get Involved Guides’ with actions and ideas for how to combat this lack of transparency and thus, the severe labour exploitation within the textile industry.

The campaign has helped connect us to the voices of workers beyond tier one, and in doing so, has allowed them to begin revealing some of the issues within their workplaces and their individual experiences. Fashion Revolution are ‘periodically monitoring and reporting on brands’ efforts towards Goal 1 – transparency beyond the first tier’. 

The urgent need for greater transparency concerns both social and environmental factors and efforts in achieving positive systematic change. 

“Transparency is not to be confused with sustainability. However, without transparency, achieving a sustainable, accountable, and fair fashion industry will be impossible. 

Transparency underpins transformative change but unfortunately much of the fashion value chain remains opaque, while human and environmental exploitation thrives with impunity.” (Fashion Revolution Transparency Index 2021).