"It isn't enough just looking for quality in the products we buy." – Orsola de Castro

Orsola de Castro is a leading voice in the fight against child labour and exploitation in the global fashion industry. As the co-founder of Fashion Revolution, the world’s largest fashion activism movement, she has dedicated her career to exposing the hidden costs of fast fashion and championing a more ethical and transparent industry.

De Castro has consistently drawn attention to the exploitation of vulnerable communities, particularly women and children, and has spoken out against the systemic injustices that allow child labour to persist.

Through powerful campaigns like #WhoMadeMyClothes, she has also inspired millions to question how their clothes are made and to hold brands accountable.

In this conversation with Global Child Forum, de Castro calls on business leaders, policymakers, and consumers to go beyond surface-level sustainability and take meaningful action to eliminate child labour from fashion.

Your journey in sustainable fashion began long before it became a mainstream concern. What initially drew you to advocate for reform in how the fashion industry treats both people and the planet? 

Orsola de Castro: That would have been my love for clothes rather than a vocation to safeguard people and nature, at least to begin with! But, as a designer, I was naturally drawn to finding creative solutions rather than exacerbating problems.

I started my upcycling label, From Somewhere, in 1997 and we pioneered the reuse of pre and post-consumer waste, collaborating with the likes of Topshop and Speedo and selling internationally until we closed one year after I co-founded Fashion Revolution in 2014 – as I believe in the positive aspect of design and its potential to make things better, not worse.

Throughout, I witnessed a gigantic change in the industry: the consolidation of fast fashion and fast luxury and the shift towards an unethical and unsustainable mass production as far away as possible, hidden from view.

The minute I realised that waste, human rights abuses, and environmental degradation were sadly synonymous with this industry – my thunderbolt moment – I committed to making changes. I love clothes way too much to wear misery on my skin or to imagine that my designs could be borne out of the misery of others.

The #WhoMadeMyClothes campaign has been instrumental in raising awareness about supply chain opacity. What have been some of the most eye-opening revelations it has brought to light about working conditions, including but not limited to child labour?

OdC: The Fashion Revolution  #Who Made My Clothes campaign was eye-opening for those who came across it. We started it in 2014 as a response to the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh the previous year (the worst industrial disaster in the fashion industry), and the hashtag was seen – and used – by millions of people.

It was clever in its simplicity: ask a question that seems almost banal and watch the brands fall over themselves because they can’t actually reply with a credible answer.  It made people, and the brands themselves, aware that supply chain invisibility hides a multitude of harms, lies, and malpractice.

For the first time after decades of enforced opacity, an abyss of human and environmental exploration came to the surface, and it finally became a concern.  As everyone knows, once something is seen, it cannot be unseen, so we truly opened a pathway to better understanding.  Above all, the campaign was responsible for bringing the importance of supply chain transparency to the forefront of any conversation, both for industry players and consumers.

While child labour is often a focus of public concern, many equally serious violations, such as poverty wages and forced overtime, receive less attention. How do you view the relationship between living wages, supply chain transparency, and the prevention of all forms of labour exploitation?

OdC: The entire fashion industry is guilty of underpaying its workers, risking their well-being in unsafe working conditions, and not allowing unionising and collective bargaining. This practice is endemic throughout the mainstream.

I coined the term Fast Luxury in 2018 to counteract the common belief that it was exclusively fast fashion that reduced its workers to extreme poverty, and it is only very recently that it has finally been exposed that it is the whole industry, from high street to high end, which exploits and abuses. Customers tended to think that the luxury sector’s workers would be better retributed with those high margins, but of course, this isn’t the case. The recent cases involving Dior and Valentino, both caught red-handed producing in sweatshop-like conditions in the north of Italy, confirm what has been a long-held secret – that even the more expensive brands are guilty at the very least of indifference. It still shocks me when I hear multi-billionaire fashion brand owners say they’ve worked hard for their success without mentioning the supply chain workers, the unseen homeworkers’ families, and the children we know are present in many value chains, working even harder and unrecognised to make profits for the directors, the shareholders, and the celebrity-clad marketing campaigns.

Many years ago, I said something that has gone viral: “It isn’t enough just looking for quality in the products we buy. We must ensure that there is quality in the lives of the people who make them”.

You have spoken powerfully about the need for decent work. How does underpayment across the fashion supply chain contribute to ongoing human rights violations, particularly among women and marginalised communities?

OdC: It is important to remember that even if a child is not labouring, if their parents are underpaid and working overtime, that child might not have access to the very basics – such as a stable education, regular meals, healthcare and a confident future. So, while, of course, knowing that children are working in the dangerous Congo mines, or anywhere else, is utterly abominable, it is equally unfathomable to imagine what a precarious life any child might have whose parents and community are facing a systemic lack of human rights and low wages. Poverty will never breed prosperity, and inevitably, this affects women and children the most. Another aspect we fail to consider is the shame, the demonisation of factory work. After decades of scrutiny, the façade has dropped, and what we see isn’t a pleasant sight.

Even in areas such as the Veneto or the Tuscany regions in Italy, once synonymous with high luxury and crafts, young people simply don’t want to do those jobs. Nearly gone are the honed professionals ably constructing the Made In Italy, in are the Chinese sweatshops operating alongside them at a fraction of the price. This is an enormous skill loss, unprecedented and problematic because we cannot have a fashion industry that celebrates only the creative directors, giving them all the credit and applause for what is absolutely teamwork from start to finish. Without the supply chain workers that make their products – and vast salaries – possible, CEOs and Creative Directors are obsolete.

In some contexts, the definition of child labour is legally and culturally complex. How should fashion brands navigate this ambiguity while maintaining a strong ethical stance and ensuring fair opportunities for young workers?

OdC: American and European Fashion brands deliberately moved their mass production to countries with non-existent or easy to circumnavigate regulations. In fact, oftentimes, entire countries are favoured over others precisely because of lower labour costs, which can indicate only one thing: lower standards.  Impunity is rife, condoned, and bad behaviour is glorified. Today’s society respects bullies who trample over others to enrich their own pockets. Provided number one is okay, forget about everyone else. The fashion industry couldn’t be more representative of this attitude in its exploitation of both workers and wearers. Consumers have been left wanting as well, inundated with inferior-quality products to gorge on, generating huge profits for very few while undermining so many socially and environmentally. Since the Rana Plaza disaster, change has been slow and inadequate across all mainstream fashion brands—in fact, dare I say it, over the past few years, we have seen fewer commitments and more greenwashing than ever.

Some companies hesitate to investigate their supply chains thoroughly because they fear what they might find. What would you say to business leaders who are reluctant to uncover and address potential abuses, including child labour and other violations?

OdC: After decades of activism, what can anyone say when most brands still bury their head in the sand and sweep all evidence under the carpet? What can we say to a system that demands unstoppable growth despite the harm it does to people and nature? We know the facts; we know that not enough is being done; we are aware that at this pace, the inexorable effect of our shortsightedness will have a catastrophic impact on life as we know it and that we still bought that extra pair of jeans, because they were aggressively marketed and we thought we couldn’t live without them. But I can see the alternative.

The future is not about upscaling a few but replicating thousands, and this is what will overtake the system: a return to small and local, just like we have seen with food. Handmade, limited edition, customisation – all this is making a comeback and will consolidate. We just have to look first at the stellar rise of the second-hand market a few years ago, and now, mending and repairing is the new ‘it’ thing.

What role do consumers play in holding brands accountable for the people behind their products, and how can everyday choices help drive change in areas like child labour, fair pay, and transparency?

OdC: Keep. The only antidote to a throwaway society is to keep. You can only fight impunity and excess with love; declaring undying love to the objects we already own is the only way to defy the system. The more we seek affordable and available repair services, the more we create our own trends re-styling our clothes rather than buying the manufactured ones, the more we wear our tears and mends with pride, the more we say, “This might be happening in my lifetime, but not in my name.”

And we carry on demanding better because it is important. But most of all. If all those who can afford to buy luxury fashion would switch from mainstream brands to the excitement of discovering someone new, an emerging, or established, innovative, sustainable, circular (call it whatever you want) designer, someone outside of the beaten track, someone unseen in our high streets and airports, someone maybe working with artisanal communities, or even a solo genius designer maker – everything would change.

And if you get consumers to understand about saving – the slow, seductive dance of putting money aside to eventually buy something that you really want, something that suits your figure and your principles, and you decide to wait for it like waiting was sexy, then mainstream brands would be running scared.