Italy Cracks Down on Sweatshops Feeding Loro Piana, Armani, Dior

(Bloomberg) -In a Chinese tailor working in a three-storey building on the outskirts of Milan for his years, working 13 hours a day, making high-level clothes for brands, including the Italian cashmere label Loro Piana.

According to the legal documents seen by Bloomberg, a Loro Piana Baby won an anonymous worker about € 1,500 ($ 1,742) about the price of the Kashmir Kazakh. It was part of the hidden, underground labor force employed by third parties producing luxury clothes for the most famous fashion houses in Italy.

The case of the tailor’s boss after he stopped paying and attacked him, was part of an ongoing investigation of permanent workers in one of the most important industries in Italy. For two years, prosecutors tried to reform an export model that premium brands sold abroad at Italian fashion abroad, and even cheap workshops have increased around Milan and swimming the standards of labor in Italy’s capital.

Milan’s Corporate Court and Carabinieri military police, led by the workers’ crimes unit, are connected to contractors connected to five well -known fashion labels such as Valentino, Armani and Dior. Loro Piana, owned by the French luxury power center Lvmh Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, was the last person on Monday and was under court control until a year.

Stefania Saviolo, Fashion and Luxury Management Faculty Member at the University of Bocconi in Milan, said, “There is a problem of reputation that started with the unreasonable increase in the fashion industry,” he said. “These investigations not only harm the relevant brands, but they also affect everything done in Italy as a system.”

Loro Piana, who has been part of LVMH since 2013, refused to make wrong and said he would cooperate with the authorities. The company said that within 24 hours after being informed about the presence of contractors, it terminated its relations with the supplier.

LVMH Italian President Toni Belloni, the high -quality Italian manufacturing broken, mostly operated by the family’s structure “transparency and surveillance can create difficulties,” he said. In a statement to Bloomberg News, the group said that it strengthened controls and revised the inner regulation. “However, there are areas of fragility, so we must work to improve our applications.”

According to Nazionale Della Moda, the industrial group camera, the fashion industry is one of the largest Italy, and in 2024 it was about 96 billion € in Italy products. The vast majority are directed towards overseas markets.

Nevertheless, the trial of the tailor sheds light on the treatment of workers who make clothes that can cost thousands of expensive. According to the court documents, between 09: 00-12: 00-124 hours a day until the end of 2024, “Caporale” or boss – a Chinese transplant – when he stopped paying for unknown reasons.

After repeated requests for their fees, a conflict began. The employer punched the tailor and beat him over and over again with an aluminum tube.

In the past, implementation efforts could not stamped labor abuse.

“These cases have been increasing for the last few years, larger groups are controlling smaller Italian companies and production begins with outsourcing.

Griffini is sometimes difficult to determine responsibility because subcontractors work for more than one fashion group.

The UK was also broken on small factories operating in cities such as illegal Sweathops, especially Leicester. The 2021 UK report found that the supply chains of companies in many industries were not forcibly employed.

Saviolo from the University of Bocconi should be followed up and closely monitored for fashion manufacturers in Italy. Especially young consumers pay more attention to brand reliability.

Milan is the focus of the expanding fashion industry in Italy, which hosts about one quarter of the country’s 600,000 fashion workers, according to Nazionale Della Moda.

The intense ecosystem of the design studios, tannery and exemplary manufacturers of the Lombardiya region gives brands without unbeatable, but the prosecutors call legitimate subcontractors called a “generalized production method ğı for micro -Faculties working from transformed garages and semi -resolved industrial parks.

Chinese companies constitute an important part of this complex. According to Milan’s Chamber of Commerce, approximately 20% of Lombardy’s more than 10,000 textile workshops and factories belong to China. The region attracted a large number of Chinese immigrants due to small business opportunities, globalization of the fashion industry and growing family ties.

The judicial clamp in Italy is against a tense global ground that threatens to expand the export costs of a US -led tariff war.

Bain lost 50 million customers in 2023 and 2024 last year. According to the June follow -up of the consulting firm, the sector will decrease between 2% and 5% this year.

Italy’s fashion industry was struggling with already falling sales, inflation and international tensions. Bored with softer demand and variable costs, the brands doubled Lombardiya’s “close comparison ına to the workshop belt to protect margins.

This strategy says prosecutors, courts trying to stop the race to the bottom, he says.

The inspectors followed Loro Piana’s knitwear to the intermediaries carrying to the factories where illegal immigrants worked 90 hours a week and sleeping machines. Judges, the company “neglecting the illegal cost reduction,” he said.

The judicial manager appointed on Monday was tasked to watch Loro Piana Management’s progress towards the supply chain.

Problems, Giorgio Armani operations, Dior Manufactures, Valentino Bags Lab and Alviero Martini, including other luxury brands: opaque layers of small subcontractors, paper safety records and mostly undocumented Chinese immigrants workforce.

Armani, Dior and Alviero Martini, released from the court supervision after implementing measures such as real -time supplier inspections. Kering Sa and Qatar’s Valentino unit, which belongs to Mayhoola, is still subject to the court.

Italian competition authority was also included. In May, an unfair probu closed Dior, 2 million €, funded for anti -reduction initiatives, and asked the company to improve the supplier veterinarian.

Dior said at that time, no violation was determined and dedicated to high ethical and perfection standards.

Armani Group, who is still under investigation by the Competition Authority on the allegation of unfair commercial practices, said that the allegations had no value and that their companies have cooperated with the authorities.

Coordination in Milan was tightened in May with an agreement between Milan Province, fashion room, trade unions and leading brands. PACT creates a shared database of veterinarian suppliers and undertakes signatures to regular certificates.

For now, the result of the Loro Piana case is based on the updates of the bench on its progress.

As for the tailor, the Milan prosecutor is trying to hire him legally, according to a person who knows the subject who wants to not discuss a personal issue. This will require the employer to make retirement contributions, tax payment and standard benefits.

-With the help of Antonio Vanuzzo, Deirdre Holwell and Angelina Rascouet.

There are more stories like this Bloomberg.com