Zara Culture Jam | 2017
digital photography
Zara is owned by parent company Inditex, which is the largest fashion retailer in the world by sales, with 34.5 billion Canadian dollars in revenue generated in 2016. In Summer 2016, Inditex’s contract manufacturer Bravo Tekstil shut down a textile factory in Turkey due to the “fraudulent disappearance of the Bravo factory’s owner,” leaving 155 textile workers without pay after they had already made the clothing. By working with this unethical factory owner, Inditex ultimately ended up selling clothes on Zara shelves that were made using unpaid labour.
The workers countered back by going to Zara clothing stores and sewing in tags that explained the unjust behaviour of Zara and its parent company Inditex, stating: “I made this item you are going to buy, but didn’t get paid for it.”
Meanwhile, Zara continues their minimalist advertising style, hiring anonymous models and young designers to sell its plethora of nonstop fast fashion products. Zara’s advertisements attempt to sell high fashion styles at an ‘affordable’ cost to the consumer, but at the expense of fair labour practices.
