The unveiling of the Australian Olympic team uniforms rarely passes without criticism. But generally, it’s the aesthetics that come under fire. The reveal for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, however, has drawn attention for its ethics – namely, that manufacturer Asics uses cotton from China’s Xinjiang region that may have been produced by Uyghur people under forced labour conditions.
While this pressing human rights issue rightfully demands attention, it seems to have drawn a blind over a matter that, perhaps, should be equally questioned – why are the uniforms of our national team manufactured by a foreign brand in overseas facilities in the first place?
There was once a thriving “rag trade” in Australia. In fact, some districts in our cities, such as Flinders Lane in Melbourne, are remembered as a hive of industry. As Lesley Sharon Rosenthal’s (the basis for a soon to be released TV series), details, garments and haberdashery items were made and sold from the lane’s businesses, which were staffed, in no small part, by European migrants who arrived after WWII. Until the 1980s, the textile and clothing manufacturing industry was heavily protected in Australia, but when tariffs on imports began to relax, many brands moved some, or all, of their production overseas to take advantage of cheaper labour.