100% Handmade

October 6, 2002

In the back of the air-conditioned silk store that gives free cups of tea to its customers and has toilet paper in its washrooms, is a small factory of workers who make some of the silk that eventually finds its way to smooth teak shelves carefully labeled according to price.

Unlike the salespeople in the store, the women back here aren't beautifully manicured and dressed. They can't speak English and don't get to take breaks between customers to fix their hair or catch up on gossip. With sweat glistening on their faces, they don't have time to make small talk with each other or the many tourists that strut on by, pleased that they can see how their $200 silk bathrobes are being made.

What these tourists don't know is that the prices they pay for their "100% handmade" items never reach these workers. They also are unaware that these underpaid artists are the ones that rich owners deem acceptable enough to showcase. The rest of them, wherever they are, holed up in huge factories not conducive to tours or snapshots, and working in conditions probably much worse, are the real meaning behind the label.

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