Part of the Series Ladydrawers

This installment of “Our Fashion Year,” our year-long look at international gender, labor, and cultural production (click here for “Fast Fashion,” “Let’s Go Shopping” and “The Business of Thrift” with Julia Gfrörer, and Mendes’ previous strips, “Zoned” and “Red Tape“) – Melissa Mendes’ last on this series – brings us inside the places that make our clothes. The often complicated interplay between national governments and the garment industry isn’t pretty, by any means (as Anne Elizabeth Moore reported from Cambodia in January), which is why apparel manufacturers and garment-exporting countries alike often prefer that the factories are kept out of sight and out of mind.

As always, an archive of our previous strips is located here. In next month’s strip, by Anne Elizabeth Moore and Ellen Lindner, we’ll talk directly to the workers in garment factories around the world.