Loro Piana under court judgment: luxury fashion in the exploitation alarm!

Loro Piana under court judgment: luxury fashion in the exploitation alarm!

Mailand, Italien - A court in Milan has made the luxury fashion company Loro Piana under judicial supervision. This was due to serious allegations of the exploitation of workers in the supply chain. The judicial measure initially applies to one year and provides for the establishment of an external administrator to ensure effective control mechanisms to monitor the supply chain, such as [Exxpress.at] (https://exxpress.at/news/luxus-unter-gloro-loro-piana-wegen-ausfühnung-unter- Justizlicht/) reports.

Loro Piana belongs to the French LVMH group and has outsourced parts of its production over two straw companies without their own manufacturing capacities to Chinese-managed workshops in Italy. Workers are said to have been exploited in these workshops. The court accused Loro Piana to have negligently controlled its own suppliers to increase profit margins. This is particularly questionable, since similar practices have already been uncovered in other prestigious brands such as Valentino, Dior and Armani. Loro Piana is the fifth fashion company, which has been targeted by the same court because of comparable grievances since 2023, according to orf.at.

judicial supervision and possible consequences

Despite the severe allegations, Loro Piana currently does not look like a criminal investigation. Rather, the ongoing investigations are directed against the operators of the subcontractors concerned, which are primarily targeted for undeclared work and exploitation. The court also made it clear that Loro Piana continued his practices, although similar cases in the fashion industry were already publicly known, which underlines the urgency of the new measures.

In May this year, an industry agreement against the work exposure of leading Italian fashion brands and authorities was signed. This agreement is intended to help improve transparency within the supply chains and to counteract such grievances. The court said that judicial supervision could be lifted prematurely if Loro Piana restructures his supply chain in accordance with the law, which indicates that implemented restructuring in other brands can have exemplary character.

Neither Loro Piana nor LVMH have so far publicly commented on the allegations. The fashion industry is increasingly under pressure to create more transparency in their supply chains in order to regain the trust of consumers, such as [retail-news.de] (https://retail-news.de/italien-modebranche- transparency-to-creep chain/). The developments around Loro Piana could also have far -reaching effects on the entire industry.