Threadbare: Clothes, Sex, and Trafficking

As Moore (Unmarketable) relates, the variety and quantity of cheap clothing offered to consumers in developed countries comes at a price. Relying on factories in poorer nations allows distributors such as H&M to sell items at lower costs. These workhouses employ largely women, providing them with needed income yet at meager wages and in miserable, nonunionized environments—true also for some U.S. fashion industry jobs. Here 22 graphic vignettes delve into exploitative conditions in the United States, Austria, and Cambodia, and then summarize impacts spanning countries. Narratives relate to fashion models, factory workers, salespeople, international trade agreements, foreign-trade zones, antisex trafficking efforts, and the vicious-cycle interplay between working in the garment business vs. the sex industry. The six artists from Ladydrawers (a webcomics collaboration on truthout.org) intersperse content from interviews with background information in a variety of styles, all enhanced by single-tone highlights in the rose-orange spectrum. While little content addresses possible remedies, or equivalent problems with male employment, these pieces tellingly demonstrate what harmful effects may be associated with this type of overproduction and overconsumption.