Pop Quiz: Can you tell me the name of country where your clothing was made? No cheating. Feel free to guess though.
If you guessed Italy or China, you’d be right about 90% of the time.
Because of the cheap labor, most garments are made in China, from raw materials sourced from China. Higher end clothing (most-notably leather) is often made in Italy. Italian textile sources have been regarded as high quality for really the entire history of the textile industry. But what if “Made in Italy” actually meant “made from Chinese materials by Chinese people”?
There is a growing population of Chinese people in the Tuscan textile city of Prato and surrounding areas. Author and journalist Silvia Pieraccini says “there are 50,000 Chinese in Prato, and that they make up about 30% of the city’s population. But no one knows, because so many, well over half, are there illegally.” This amounts to the highest concentration of Chinese “in any administrative district outside China itself”. Considering that most are there illegally, there is probably a much higher number of Chinese residents than what has been reported.
You may ask what this flock of Chinese people are doing in Italy…it seems that they make their living by making clothing.
All but a few are from around of Wenzhou, a port in south-east China, and are drawn to Italy by an industry created from scratch in less than 20 years. Pronto moda involves importing cheap fabric, usually from China, and getting it made up to order at breakneck speeds into high-fashion garments that are then sold with “made in Italy” labels.
Next time you get that leather jacket or shearling coat, that is “Made in Italy”…there might be more to it than what you see on the label.