Fashion’s best kept secret: home-based workers

They trim loose threads, stitch buttons, zippers and hooks and hem garments; they embroider and embellish with beads and sequins; they hand-paint fabrics, knot tassels and fold garments into polybags for shipment; they even do edge-painting or decorative stitching for accessories. There is hardly a supply chain in the textile, garment and footwear industry that makes do without home-based workers (HBWs). Intricate, time-consuming processes that are hard to mechanise is their expertise.