imbroglios

Primark Says Notorious Tags Were a Hoax

Photo: Bloomberg/Getty Images

The U.K.-based high-street chain Primark got a lot of flak after a customer in Wales found a label in one of their dresses that read, “Forced to work exhausting hours.” After a second customer, also in Wales, came forward with a similar note (“Degrading sweatshop conditions”), the store investigated further, concluding that the two labels must have come from the same source. Explained a company spokesperson, “It is almost impossible to imagine circumstances in which such similar labels could have been sewn onto the garments at the factory where they were made, given that they were made by different suppliers, in different factories, on different continents, one in Romania and the other in India, thousands of miles apart.”

However, undercutting Primark’s statement a bit is a note inside a pair of pants that was found by a customer in Belfast. This missive, written in Chinese, claims that the company is using Chinese prisoners to make its clothes. The plot thickens.

Primark Says Notorious Tags Were a Hoax