The Real Story Behind Those Desperate Notes That Zara Workers Left In Clothes

A ruthless factory owner. A shuttered sewing facility. Unpaid laborers reportedly walking into a Zara store in Istanbul to attach tags saying, “I made this item you are going to buy, but I didn’t get paid for it.” It’s all part of an ugly web of events that Zara’s parent company, Inditex, has been drawn into over the last year. Last week, the Associated Press reported that shoppers in Istanbul were finding desperate notes in their clothing, allegedly sewn on by workers who claimed that they had not been paid for their labor at the Bravo Tekstil factory in Turkey. While it is hard to confirm the authenticity of these notes since the workers did not identify themselves by name, the story contained within these brief messages squares with Inditex’s own explanation of the events that unfolded. Today, an Inditex spokesperson provided a written statement to Fast Company explaining that the company had indeed been manufacturing clothing at Bravo Tekstil, along with other European-based fast fashion labels like Mango and Next. Around 155 laborers worked in the factory. In July 2016, the factory shut down due to the “fraudulent disappearance of the Bravo factory’s owner,” Inditex says. This owner, the company added, took all the money the fashion companies had paid and disappeared without paying the workers, who had already made the clothing. Read more at Fast Company.