CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Stuff
"Made in China" (Rapha)
(9 posts)-
Posted 12 years ago #
-
Are they attempting to justify their exorbitant prices? I am totally appreciative of the quality and indeed incredible skills of Chinese artisans/designers. Their silks, embroidery, clothes making, carving (has anyone seen cork sculpture/carvings - breathtaking) painting, weaving, all second to none, and all of which suffered greatly under Mao Tse Tung and subsequent communist regimes, where everyone had to look/dress the same. Theirs is one of the oldest civilisations/cultures much of which was subjugated and actively discouraged for decades. I just have a real problem, however, with their human/animal rights record and continuing poor attitude to both.
Posted 12 years ago # -
+1 Liz.
Its a totally self serving piece, and suggesting that sweatshops dont exist anymore etc etc is nonsense.
Wonder what they will say when top quality knock off rapha gear appears on ebay - made in the same factory, of course........
Posted 12 years ago # -
Same thing Pinarello must say about this not a Pinarello Dogman frame, that is not a Pinarello Dogma, even though it is. Even though it has the pictures of a Pinarello Dogma on the listing! £520. A "genuine" new Pinarello Dogma will cost you probables 4 times that just for the frame.
Posted 12 years ago # -
To be fair it does raise some reasonable (or certainly thought-provoking) points.
For example, why does "made in Britain" indicate anything about the quality of an item at all? The only justification I can find is that as large-scale manufacturing in the UK has died off, "made in Britain" has become a byword for "made carefully in small batches", which is quite different.
On the sweatshop front too, it's not obvious that manufacturers shouldn't have stuff made in country X just because working conditions there aren't always optimal. Everybody is free *not* to work in a sweatshop after all.
Couldn't we just as well argue that a company like Rapha with gigantic profit margins looking to find a factory to produce premium goods would be *best* to go to a country with poor working conditions, to help improve them?
Posted 12 years ago # -
"Everybody is free *not* to work in a sweatshop after all."
Umm. Technically, yes. In practise, some Country X sweatshop employees with a family to feed might beg to differ (if they wouldn't be soundly beaten and docked a week's pay for talking).
Posted 12 years ago # -
I'm no expert on chinese sweatshops, but one particularly pernicious effect on families seems to be that children of migrants can't go to school in cities, so either the kids don't get much education, or they are left behind in rural areas.
Posted 12 years ago # -
In practise, some Country X sweatshop employees with a family to feed might beg to differ (if they wouldn't be soundly beaten and docked a week's pay for talking).
So for the sake of argument, Rapha has its clothes made in the UK instead, and the sweatshop closes, and everyone starves... big improvement?
</devilsadvocate>
Posted 12 years ago # -
Rapha are indeed free to make their clothings in the UK if they want. With only a small price increase they could make them in low earth orbit. Would the sweatshop close or just be taken over by Primark, so that only a few quality control supervisors would lose their jobs?
Posted 12 years ago #
Reply
You must log in to post.
posts
