Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Coronavirus: The Price of Luxury. Fashion’s “Made in Italy” tag is connected to a Chinese disease.
American Spectator ^ | March 20, 2020 | Robert Stacy McCain

Posted on 03/20/2020 8:52:10 AM PDT by karpov

As the United States prepares for a second week of lockdown to slow the spread of the Chinese coronavirus (COVID-19), hundreds of people in Italy are dying every day from this disease. And the reason why Italy now has more coronavirus deaths than any other country can be summarized in a single word — luxury.

In the world of fashion, the “Made in Italy” tag has a distinct value associated with luxury and status. Merchants can charge higher prices for clothing, shoes, handbags, and other fashion goods manufactured in Italy, and that value was coveted by certain Chinese entrepreneurs. During the past three decades, more and more Chinese investors bought into textile and leather-good factories in northern Italy, and they brought over Chinese laborers to work in those factories. By 2010, there were reportedly 60,000 Chinese in Prato, an industrial suburb of Florence. To accommodate Italy’s new foreign labor force, nonstop flights were established between China and Rome.

None of this was a secret. The Chinese takeover of “Made in Italy” fashion was reported by, among other publications, the Chicago Tribune (“Chinese immigrants transform Italy’s fashion industry,” Jan. 2, 2009), the New York Times (“Chinese Remake the ‘Made in Italy’ Fashion Label,” Sept. 12, 2010), the BBC (“The Italian fashion capital being led by the Chinese,” Feb. 12, 2013), Reuters (“Italy’s Chinese garment workshops boom as workers suffer,” Dec. 29, 2013), the Associated Press (“Clashes amid Italy’s crackdown on its Chinese community,” July 1, 2016) and the New Yorker (“The Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Tuscany,” April 9, 2018). In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, however, our media seem to have gotten a case of collective amnesia; readers and viewers are left mystified as to why Italy has become the epicenter of this pandemic.

(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: china; coronavirus; europe; italy

1 posted on 03/20/2020 8:52:10 AM PDT by karpov
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: karpov

2 posted on 03/20/2020 8:53:26 AM PDT by Moonman62 (http://www.freerepublic.com/~moonman62/)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

Italy is a province of China now as far as the Wu Flu goes.


3 posted on 03/20/2020 8:55:35 AM PDT by lodi90
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

the italian elite sold out their workers for cheap Chinese labor... and they reaping what they have sown...

worse yet, they are inviting the ChiComs to help them with the outbreak from a virus they created.


4 posted on 03/20/2020 8:55:40 AM PDT by sheehan (DEPORT ALL ILLEGALS.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: karpov

I was in the grocery store this morning on senior shop and assiduously avoided the Chinese frozen food.


5 posted on 03/20/2020 9:07:55 AM PDT by yldstrk (Bingo! We have a winner!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sheehan
The Italian elites have totally screwed themselves on this one.

Their fashion industry has been exposed for what it is, Made in China - except for a worse location than China

Seriously, unskilled Chinese workers with typical Chinese attention to detail combined with Italian work ethic, indifference to quality control and crazy labor laws - what could go wrong.

Better to buy Made in China where a worker gets gets taken out and punished harshly if they screw up a seam even slightly

Don’t think the fashion industries Made in Italy cachet will ever recover now that it has been exposed for what it is.

6 posted on 03/20/2020 10:03:43 AM PDT by rdcbn ( Referentiail)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: lodi90

An additional tidbit from a CNN interview with a prominent Italian virologist follows:

An Italian virologist says that the country’s attempt not to appear “racist” in the early says of the coronavirus outbreak crippled the ability to properly respond to the pandemic.

Professor of Virology and Microbiology at the University of Padova Dr. Giorgio Palù told CNN that measures imposing travel restrictions and border controls were taken too late due to fears over political correctness.

“There was a proposal to isolate people coming from the epicenter, coming from China,” Palù told CNN. “Then it became seen as racist, but they were people coming from the outbreak.”

Italy is now the hardest hit country in the world in terms of coronavirus deaths, with 3,405 people losing their lives.

The need to minimize potential “racism” and “stigmatization” in response to the coronavirus was a policy endorsed by the World Health Organization itself on numerous occasions and adopted by the left-wing Italian government.


7 posted on 03/20/2020 10:27:44 AM PDT by TheConservativeBanker
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: lodi90

If Italy is a province of China, then that would include nearly all of the Demonrant and much of the Reflublicant Uniparty.


8 posted on 03/20/2020 11:22:05 AM PDT by attiladhun2
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: karpov; All

It’s about time this was brought out. I have a feeling that most of those CCom WuVirus victims are those Chinese workers. We need to know if that’s the case because that would reflect on the reports of the easy transmission might help reduce the panic.


9 posted on 03/20/2020 11:43:49 AM PDT by mosesdapoet (mosesdapoet aka L.J.Keslin posting here for the record hoping somebody might read and pass around)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson