
From Fibers to Fashion Week
A look at the global supply chain behind the clothes currently strutting down New York’s runways.
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The glitz and glamour of New York Fashion Week is a long way from the garment factories of Indonesia or the tanneries of Bangladesh.
But as models parade their way through the city this week wearing silk (Yves Saint Laurent), leather (Coach), and wool (Chanel), it’s worth remembering that these clothes have often traveled great distances and been touched by many hands on their journey to the runway. From Scottish weavers working out of their homes to women sewing in large factories in China, a globalized supply chain has become integral to the fashion world (with wildly varying wages and conditions for those who pick the cotton, dye the wool, and tan the leather that will eventually become hot new outfits).
Here, in the midst of fashion's biggest week of the year, Foreign Policy brings you a look at some of the people and places that may have helped produce the outfits currently making their way down the runway.
Above, a farmer from Henan province picks cotton in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Sept. 22, 2007.
China Photos/Getty Images
Men shear a sheep on a curb in Karachi, Pakistan, June 15, 2014.
RIZWAN TABASSUM/AFP/Getty Images
Farmers package cotton in Pama, central Burkina Faso, Jan. 22, 2007.
ISSOUF SANOGO/AFP/Getty Images
A farmer transports cotton bales in China's Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, Sept. 23, 2007
China Photos/Getty Images
Men prepare hides in a tannery in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Feb. 27, 2014.
MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
A woman oversees machines at a textile factory in Hefei, China, Apr. 11, 2011.
STR/AFP/Getty Images
A man dyes wool at the Harris Tweed Hebrides company in Stornoway, Scotland, May 13, 2014.
Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images
An employee at a French tulle and lace factory works at a loom in Caudry, northern France, Apr. 23, 2013.
PHILIPPE HUGUEN/AFP/Getty Images
Women work in a garment factory in Narsingdi, Bangladesh, July 27, 2009.
MUNIR UZ ZAMAN/AFP/Getty Images
Women sew at a garment factory on the outskirts of Yangon, Myanmar, Sept. 27, 2012.
Ye Aung Thu/AFP/GettyImages
Hundreds of employees of the Sritex textile and garment company sew uniforms in Solo, Indonesia, Dec. 13, 2012.
Tarko SUDIARNO/AFP/Getty Images
A worker creases a pair of jeans at the Bitou denim processing facility in the Kojima district of Kurashiki, Japan, Feb. 25, 2014. Kojima, a small seaside district in western Japan, is known as "Japan's Denim Mecca."
Chris McGrath/Getty Images
A worker folds jeans at a clothing factory in Shishi, China, May 12.
STR/AFP/Getty ImagesFrom Fibers to Fashion Week
A look at the global supply chain behind the clothes currently strutting down New York’s runways.