“You’re Obese”: The Dark Tale of the Workers Behind the Glitter

When fashion forgets who sews it

In the 1960s and 1970s, female textile workers in Reggio Emilia went on strike in major factories like Confit, Bloch, Maska, Max Mara, and not just for wages. They demanded rights over their bodies, their health, their time. They worked in environments saturated with fibers, standing for hours, with night shifts that left no room for motherhood, life, dignity. Those women, often invisible in the union narratives of the time, brought a new urgency to the heart of the factories: the struggle was not just economic. It was existential.

In cases like Max Mara, the workers demanded recognition of the trade unions and national labor contracts in the sector.

“The request to improve the working environment and to act in defense of health […] represented a significant speech and an autonomous field of mobilization for many women”

from Le lotte delle operaie tessili reggiane, Genere Lavoro Cultura Tecnica

Within textile companies such as the Max Mara Group, workers promoted self-investigations into environmental and health conditions in the workplace. An investigation carried out in collaboration with the Occupational Medicine Center of Guastalla revealed serious critical issues: high temperatures, poor ventilation, noise, textile dust, lack of natural light and forced sedentary positions. The consequences were widespread: gynecological, muscular, visual and psychosomatic disorders such as anxiety and irritability.

Fifty-four years later, the thread seems to have tied itself in the same place.

May 2025. The workers of Manifattura San Maurizio – home of Max Mara production – go on strike. “Here we are stuck in the 80s” – explains Erica Morelli, general secretary of Filctem Cgil Reggio Emilia.

Right there, in the province of Reggio Emilia where the workers had gone on strike, modern workers denounce a production system that seems to have forgotten everything. That imposes frenetic rhythms, pays by piecework in disguise, constantly monitors to produce more and more. That judges them by their bodies – too slow, too fat, “cash cows” – inviting them to exercise at home to lose weight, as they denounced in interviews with Ilaria Mauri of IIl Fatto Quotidiano . A language that degrades, dehumanizes. And behind that language, an organization that exploits silence and the need to bring home a salary.

“They practically pay us by the piece and they also check how many times we go to the toilette, but we are all women, we have our periods: it’s inhumane”

It’s not just Max Mara. In the same days, at the end of May, the Carabinieri of the Modena Station and the Modena Labor Inspectorate Unit raid a textile factory in Cognento, and discover Chinese workers hired illegally, underpaid, and without rights. The Chinese manager was arrested.

In the fall of 2024, between Reggio Emilia and Modena, an operation against gangmastering coordinated by the Reggio Prosecutor’s Office leads to the seizure of seven factories in the manufacturing and clothing packaging sector. Serious conditions of exploitation, violations of health and safety regulations, and precarious and degrading housing conditions come to light.

Similar cases emerge in the North:

• In Tezze sul Brenta (Vicenza), a raid by the Guardia di Finanza: laboratory seized, dormitories created in warehouses, dangerous systems (Il Giornale di Vicenza)
• In Serravalle a Po (Mantova), the local inspectorate discovered illegal workers and disregarded safety regulations. The Public Prosecutor’s Office of Mantova reported a 29-year-old of Chinese origin (Gazzetta di Mantova)
• In Cabiate (Como), a Chinese textile laboratory that produces on behalf of the best Italian brands in the fashion sector has been closed (Il Giorno)
• In Milan and Monza, other laboratories are fined. Seven Chinese owners are reported for gangmastering. Irregular and clandestine labor in exploitative conditions. Completely disregarded are also the rules on safety in the workplace and there (il Cittadino Monza e Brianza). In Milan, a dormitory factory where workers were paid 4 euros an hour to work up to 90 hours a week, 7 days a week, has been closed (Ansa).

The labels are Italian, the conditions are not.

But the indignation quickly dies down, like an Instagram story.

Yet these stories scream. They scream of a return of gangmastering in new forms. They scream that even in “high-end” fashion, human dignity can be sewn away, stitch after stitch, in the name of productivity. The hands that make the perfect coat never appear on the catwalk. But they are there, worn, checked, tired. And now they finally speak.

Is this the “spring-summer collection” of Italian fashion? Denigrated bodies, ignored voices, elegance based on the sacrifice of others. The fashion industry – including luxury – is woven of contradictions: beautiful images and threads of silence.

Sustainability cannot be an empty word on tags. It must be a public commitment: environmental, economic, human. If there is something to remember today, it is this: behind a thousand-euro coat, there is the temperature of squeezed bodies. If we want to talk about the right fashion, let’s start with those who sew that fashion.

A few thoughts

• The female body as a “measure” of productivity: that “cash cow” is the extreme path of industrial body-shaming, where the body becomes an instrument, not a subject.
• The model of the invisible chain: clothes that cost thousands of euros are born from an inhumane mechanism of gangmastering, illegal ramifications that reveal the dark soul of the fashion supply chain.
• • From exploitation to rebellion: from the struggles of the textile workers of the 70s – who put the issues of gender and health on the table – today raising one’s head is a political, social, aesthetic need: beauty cannot ignore dignity.

What is urgently needed?

Action	Purpose
Targeted inspections of key production sites like Manifattura San Maurizio and subcontractors	To verify employment contracts, compliance with the national collective agreement (CCNL), and safety conditions
Supply chain transparency	To require brands to disclose origin, working conditions, and third-party involvement
Genuine union dialogue	To open space for supplementary bargaining and ensure union monitoring (e.g. CGIL, UIL)
Consumer awareness campaigns	To make the human cost behind each garment visible to the public
Stronger institutional oversight	To ensure local and national authorities carry out effective inspections and enforce penalties