Illegal practices tear the reputation of Italian luxury fashion

It is an industry that thrives on quality, yet Italy's top houses are being investigated for subcontracting, black market markups and sweat shop labour

- Stephen Armstrong & Carolina Rapezzi

In May an unnamed Chinese man arrived at a Milan hospital emergency room having been so badly beaten he was kept in hospital for almost two months.

He told police he'd been in the city since 2015 after signing a contract to work as a tailor for four hours a day earning €1,500 (£1,300) a month. He'd been living in the factory, forced to work 13 hours a day with no days off, just one half an hour break for lunch and one for dinner. In 2024, his wages stopped. He'd complained and was savagely attacked with fists and a plastic and aluminium pipe in an assault that lasted for several hours.

The police raided the factory he'd been trapped in and found padlocked dormitories, dining rooms, unsafe equipment, 12 workers one Russian, one Italian and 10 Chinese nationals, five of whom were undocumented migrants and five coat racks full of luxury cashmere jackets which retailed online for between £2,000 and £10,000.

The tag on the jackets was for the luxury Italian fashion brand Loro Piana, 80% owned by French luxury giant LVMH and marketed as "quiet luxury". The company that made them Clover Moda, owned by a Chinese businessman Hu Xizhai was part of an elaborate supply chain created to cope with uncertain and irregular demands. The brand's official subcontractor, Evergreen, owned by spouses Ermmano Brioschi and Teresa Provenzi, confessed it had been ill-equipped to meet Loro Piana's orders and so sought two suppliers Clover Moda and Hu Sufang to help.