As part of my ongoing progress in sartorialism, I present Pink Little Girl A-line Dress #0. I overrided an A-line pattern with some ruffles and notions.
Apart from learning some new techniques like sewing rolled hems, ruffles and bias bindings, I realized that labor is grossly undervalued in clothing manufacturing.
Children's clothing tends to be cheaper than adults clothing (normalize by, say, shopping only within Walmart) but that doesn't make sense because there is just so much more work involved in making all the tiny pockets, ruffles, lace bindings and applique, especially at smaller scales that require more precision and skill in sewing (contrast slicing an apple vs slicing a cherry). Deducing from that, the actual cost of manufacturing is likely weighted more by the amount of fabric used than the labor involved, which surprises me because fabric is almost always machine-woven and machine-printed, and is usually quite inferior in quality in ready-made clothing today.
I'd be interested in the economics of labor prices going up in Bangladesh, India, Macau and other sweat shops. I'd also be interested in what we'd end up wearing should that happen. Maybe Saris. And Lungies.
