Fashion Horror Stories: Trapped in a New Delhi Slum

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Posted March 21, 2011 | Comments / 22

I'd just finished uni when the offer of working on my friend's friend's production in India came up. They even sweetened the deal by saying they'd pay my rent for a nice place and I could have my own designs made up while I was out there. This friend of a friend, from now on known as Mr X, was connected to quite a prestigious label, was a bit of a wide-boy, and went out with a very famous rockstar's daughter.



Maybe the alarm bells should have rung when I got off the plane and Mr X took my passport off me for no fully explained reason. When we finally arrived at the factory it looked like a sort of cold war bunker in the middle of a New Delhi slum, though weirdly, even though we were in the middle of the city, there was a patch of ground outside with 90 cows on it. And the houses and flats in the surrounding streets didn't have front walls so you could see people going to the toilet or doing their washing, or whatever.

For the first week or so, even though I was working a 16 or 18 hour day, I had to bed down with the other workers in the factory while I waited for the promised, really nice accommodation in a good area to materialize. Eventually, they found me a flat in another rundown part of Delhi. My flatmate, a French girl, and the only person for miles who spoke English, took an instant dislike to me, when I took a slice of her bread because I had no money and no food.

Even though I was nominally working for Mr X he'd just disappear and reappear with loads of cheap polo shirts for some reason and loads of coke from who knows where. At the factory he'd always be doing the whole sleazy arm-round-you, let-me-help-you thing, and would just walk into the flat unannounced. One night, he took off all his clothes and just got into bed with me. I was frozen, but by this point I'd had maybe four hours sleep a night for three weeks and was too tired to really object.

The working conditions were horrendous. The generators would keep cutting off so the fans wouldn't work - the place really was a sweat shop. Weirdly, the only CD I had with me was Nelly's "Hot in Herre", which just made the whole situation more surreal. Going to the toilet was pretty gross. There was no paper. Everyone does that left hand dirty, right hand clean thing. The toilet graffiti was pretty funny. There were cocks drawn on the walls, but instead of the familiar western scrawl of a cock it was always a sort of Kama Sutra cock, and there was Indian porn all up the walls.

It was difficult work. The bags had all been designed into these super-complex structural shapes. There were 75 female embroiderers in the factory all hand beading under fluorescent lights. I was meant to be in charge, but as a small woman it didn't really work. I survived by drinking chai and smoking 40 Marlboro Reds a day. Very occasionally we'd get a takeaway, which was pretty grim. Maybe I forgot to mention I was never paid and had no money of my own. The food just comes loose in a plastic bag, not in a box or anything.

Five boys, around my age at the time, 21, were in charge of the factory. If I so much as asked for a ruler I'd be ignored. In the end, I lost my shit with some of the boys and went mental at them. After shouting at them, all the women started clapping and I ended up covered in bindis and rings.

After a month had passed I'd really had enough. I ran out of the door with the petty cash, ran and ran till I found a phone I could use and rang everyone I knew. No one was by their landline. After calling everyone I realized I didn't know where I was, didn't know how to get home, couldn't speak to anyone to find out where I was, and had no passport or money. I had blond hair and people would just come up to me in the street and scratch my freckles. I tried to get directions back to the factory by making embroidery gestures, but no joy.  As it got dark, I started to panic. Suddenly, a little boy from the factory recognized me and he guided me back even though he didn't understand English.

Eventually, after three months, I only got home after making up some family tragedy when Mr X said he needed me to stay another three months. When I arrived at Heathrow and was asked if I'd had a nice holiday I just burst into tears. For years afterwards, whenever I closed my eyes I'd just see cows, beggars and deformed people.

 

BERT GILBERT

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