This article is part of a series where we unpack what the ‘Made in the UK’ label stands for in 2025, and what it tells us about the future of onshoring. Read our series on ‘Made in Italy’ here, and ‘Made in India’ here.
Five years ago, the small English city of Leicester was rocked by a fashion supply chain scandal that reverberated around the world. Campaign group Labour Behind the Label alleged that it had found evidence of modern slavery in some Leicester factories primarily supplying fast fashion giant Boohoo, with some garment workers being paid as little as £3.50 per hour (less than half of the national minimum wage at the time). The government launched an official investigation and remediation plan, and a mass exodus of fashion brands began. In just a few short months, Leicester went from housing over 1,000 fashion factories to no more than 50, as orders dried up.
The city’s industry, once on the brink of extinction, is now showing flickers of life. Last week, at the relaunched and expanded Leicester Made trade show, the city’s remaining manufacturers put on a united front. Having been dogged by what several panellists referred to as “sensationalist” press, and stigmatised by the scandal for half a decade, they say they are ready for a fresh start. Event organiser Jenny Holloway, founder of London-based manufacturer Fashion Enter and Leicester-based upskilling hub Fashion Technology Academy, told attendees that the 2020 scandal was “greatly exaggerated” and “blown out of all proportion”. She insisted that the few “rogue traders” had been stamped out, although there are continued reports from garment workers that counter this. Still, Holloway says Leicester is ready for a brighter, more ethical and circular future, led by the Apparel Textile Manufacturers Association (ATMF), of which she was appointed chair earlier this year.
After surviving Brexit, Covid and countless other reckonings, UK-based fashion and textiles manufacturers have learnt a lot about what it takes to stay afloat in the modern era of production.
For some, the event was a welcome refocusing on Leicester’s potential strengths as a manufacturing hub — namely its potential to offer small-batch, on-demand manufacturing with quick turnarounds and minimal waste, which proponents say can offset the high cost of manufacturing ethically in the UK. Several brands and retailers attended the event, including John Lewis, Debenhams, Gymshark, Asos, Sainsbury’s, Never Fully Dressed and SilkFred. Peter Chandler, head of economic regeneration for Leicester City Council, told attendees that Leicester could be in “a unique position to be the centre of textile manufacturing this century”. Rosie Wrighting, the Labour MP for Kettering (a constituency neighbouring Leicester), said Leicester “needs to talk about garment manufacturing with pride, because it’s part of our economy and our culture”.
Others remain sceptical. Conservative MP Shivani Raja represents Leicester East, where the unemployment rate is threefold the national average thanks to garment factory closures. Her mother was among those who lost their jobs when the scandal broke. Raja says her focus is on finding new job opportunities for her constituents in other industries, rather than revitalising the fashion industry. “The world has changed a lot,” she says. “Why flog a dead horse?”
American lawyer Jennifer Wascak, who spoke at Leicester Made, got involved in the city’s remediation efforts during the pandemic. She had stumbled across a petition filed under Section 307 of the US Tariff Act, which prohibits the import of goods manufactured by forced labour, and thought it could be useful leverage for Leicester garment workers. Wascak co-founded a community interest company called Justice in Fashion in 2020, hosting drop-in advice clinics for garment workers. What she found challenged her perception of progress, and proved just how difficult it would be to genuinely stamp out exploitation.
“Listening to the garment workers, their families and the suppliers who were supposedly responsible for their exploitation, I realised that there was no simple fix,” she says. “These problems are really heavy, messy issues that require systemic changes and cultural changes and new business models. They are deeply entrenched and intertwined.”
Across stakeholder groups, there is an understanding that these challenges are rampant throughout the manufacturing industry, albeit perhaps more shocking in a developed and heavily regulated country like the UK. “We were very clear in our report that these were structural issues, not unique to Leicester. If we had enough resources, we could expose labour abuses in a different factory, in a different country, every day,” says Dominique Muller, UK policy lead at Labour Behind the Label, who worked on the 2020 report. “We firmly believe that the fashion industry is exploitative at [the] core and where fashion manufacturing happens — be it Prato, Bangladesh or Leicester — there is exploitation. And this is especially true when you look at ultra-fast fashion. It’s simply baked into the business model.”
Leicester is caught between a rock and a hard place. The fast fashion business model has not changed. The manufacturers Vogue Business spoke to lamented the increasingly long payment terms that brands demand, as well as the ongoing issue of late payments and the lack of long-term commitment. They feel the need to present a positive image of ‘Made in Leicester’ to drum up job opportunities and investment, and there is a growing movement to nurture local creativity in line with that. But at the same time, former and current garment workers are still struggling, with many barely making ends meet, and all of the usual levers sustainable fashion experts defer to — including audits, tighter regulation and government intervention — are failing to scratch the surface.
And while winning brand support might bring manufacturing jobs back to Leicester, community organisers warn against overlooking or dismissing the immediate plight of garment workers. “I appreciate the need to move forward and I support that,” says Wascak. “But have we just forgotten about the thousands of people who lost their jobs [in the wake of the scandal] and are now living in poverty?”
Manufacturers primed to invest and innovate
One of the manufacturers promoting the virtues of Leicester’s on-demand capabilities is screen printer and garment decorator Meesha Graphics, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. Director Sunny Patel says his team has developed a software that plugs into retail partners’ e-commerce platforms, so individual orders can be produced as soon as consumers request them. Asos — which commits 3 per cent of its annual production to Leicester — is one of the retailers already using this service, alongside Gymshark and Urban Outfitters.
“Yes, we are more expensive than Bangladesh, that’s obvious. But at the same time, where else can you buy 200 units, customise them however you want, and have them delivered in two weeks?” says Patel. “If you buy 1,000 units from an international supplier, you end up discounting 800 of them. We can design bestsellers, trend-drivers, but we need that commitment from brands to be able to invest.”
Producing in the UK could be part of a blended sourcing strategy, supplementing rather than replacing international production, says Simon Platts, who was the responsible sourcing director at Asos when the Leicester scandal broke, and now works as an independent consultant. “As a buyer, I always wanted speed, agility, fewer markdowns, less waste and quicker reaction times,” he says. “Onshoring and nearshoring are absolutely relevant to those aims. And then when you look at what [President] Trump is doing with tariffs, the carbon cost of transport and shipping delays, you see additional benefits. You don’t have to fly around the world, you can get the same products on your doorstep.”
The challenge for Leicester’s manufacturers is that decades of offshoring, combined with the fallout from the scandal, has left them lagging behind international competitors. At Leicester Made, Platts likened UK manufacturers’ attempts to compete on the global stage to “strapping a rocket to a horse and cart”. Former PVH chief supply chain officer Bill McRaith added: “It’s hard to onshore because all the innovation is happening offshore.”
Without investment, innovation is near impossible, says third-generation knitwear manufacturer Tejas Shah, a co-founder of ATMF whose family company Shahtex recently transitioned from flatbed to circular knitting. He has invested heavily in seamless knitting machines — the only ones in the UK — in an attempt to attract sportswear brands. “What we enjoy with fashion is innovation. But if we can’t keep the lights on, we can’t innovate,” he says. “[International factories] have been able to reinvest in their buildings — they have the solar panels and the water treatment plants because brands are putting hundreds of thousands of metres a week through those knitting plants. If you give me the same contract, I’ll build my factory the same way.”
To make their vision of Leicester a reality, manufacturers need orders. But consumer and brand perception is working against them. Some brands — including Boohoo and Asos — continue to source from Leicester, which stakeholders across the board are supportive of, when the alternative would be to cut and run. But several manufacturers showed Vogue Business messages from other British high street brands stating that they could not source from Leicester because of the lingering negative associations. Holloway is pushing for British brands to commit a percentage of their total manufacturing to Leicester, alongside public procurement contracts, to create a steady flow of work.
Manufacturers are doing everything they can to attract buyers. Patel says his team have translated worker handbooks into a searchable online portal, accessible by QR code, which allows employees to double check their rights at will, as well as whistle blow if needed. He also spends £35,000 per year on audits and certifications, including separate branded audits for Disney, Nike and Gymshark, as well as the Fast Forward standard established to verify UK manufacturers in the wake of the Boohoo scandal. “That is a huge cost, and it doesn’t even include the two full-time compliance people I have to hire to oversee the audits,” he says. “I’ve made that investment in the hope that retailers will recognise our factory as going above and beyond.”
Those that have invested in new machinery have been able to do so because of consistent brand relationships. Richard Olley runs Ethically Sourced Products, a garment manufacturer specialising in jersey garments, which relocated to a purpose-built factory in 2018 and has invested heavily in cutting-edge machinery since. Unlike many of his competitors, Olley has the cash flow to invest because of an ongoing partnership with British brand Fred Perry, which consistently fills 80 per cent of his production capacity. He also produces for Homebody, a luxury lifestyle brand whose sleepwear is stocked in Harrods. “Everyone is talking about high street retailers, but I think the future for Leicester is upmarket,” says Olley. “We’re more expensive, so we have to accept that we can’t compete at high street prices.”
The thorny nature of remediation
A lack of progress made through official channels might explain why exasperated manufacturers are now attempting to galvanise the industry through brand buy-in and job creation. Without orders — and therefore jobs — Leicester has been left to decay.
In the aftermath of the scandal, the UK government initiated Operation Tacit, a multi-agency review led by the Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) to weed out examples of non-compliance in Leicester supply chains. As part of the process, Leicester City Council and Public Health England conducted unannounced visits to manufacturers around the region. An independent investigation led by Alison Levitt QC — and paid for by Boohoo — found that Boohoo’s governance structures had failed to keep pace with its rapid growth and its supply chain monitoring in Leicester was lacking, but it was not guilty of any criminal offences.
Levitt made several recommendations, including the further education of Boohoo buyers on ethical purchasing practices, the transparent mapping of suppliers and subcontractors, and the recruitment of two in-house compliance officers. Boohoo Group — which has since rebranded as Debenhams Group — says all recommendations were delivered and independently verified within 18 months. Boohoo says it now has an ethical compliance team on the ground in Leicester — alongside other key manufacturing hubs — who visit supplier factories every day.
The question of how to address the systemic issues in Leicester has proved harder to answer. In the time since the scandal, Leicester has endured countless “finger pointing” and “situation analysis”, says Dr Divya Jyoti, a lecturer in the department of organisation, work and technology at Lancaster University with a particular interest in how human vulnerability is shaped by organisations and societies. Numerous white papers and independent reviews have been published and more still have been promised but never released. Now, stakeholders are waiting to see whether the government’s impending industrial strategy will include a regeneration plan for Leicester. “The danger is that it picks shiny economies and overlooks textiles,” said Chandler at Leicester Made.
Fatima Li and Ellias Mussa lead the Fashion Workers Advice Bureau Leicester (FAB-L), a grassroots project based at the Highfields Centre community hub, established in 2021 to protect vulnerable and exploited workers. Greater Highfield has been recognised by the government as a disadvantaged area with high levels of deprivation. Since the scandal, Li says FAB-L has seen a rise in gig work, with some garment workers reporting that a few factories are drafting in otherwise unemployed garment workers for a few days or weeks at a time on the rare occasion brands place big orders, paying under the going rate and taking advantage of their desperation for work. Many former garment workers are now living in shared houses just to afford basic necessities, she adds, sometimes squeezing two or three families into one small house.
FAB-L is focused on upskilling workers and supporting them into new roles — particularly in construction, care, food and hospitality — but funding is dwindling. “We rely on grants and funding,” says Li. “At the moment, there’s a high risk of me and Ellias losing our jobs in eight months if people don’t come forward and support us.”
Li says many former garment workers have told her they would rather the scandal had never been exposed. “The reality is that a lot of them wanted something to do when the kids were at school, something they enjoyed that allowed them to form a social network and get paid,” she says. “They would happily just hide under the surface and accept what they get, because the risk of not getting that pay is so much greater.” While community organisers do not condone underpaying workers, they have seen firsthand the unintended consequences of calling out misconduct without following it up with effective remediation. Several third-party reports have come to similar conclusions: garment workers can bear the brunt of well-intentioned exposés.
Looking for a “bad guy” doesn’t help, says Wascak. At the end of last year, she featured on a five-part podcast series about “the curious case of Leicester”, compiled by ‘Manufactured’ podcast host and former garment factory manager Kim van der Weerd in association with Jyoti from Lancaster University. The series positioned Leicester as a rebuttal to the common misconception that worker exploitation only happens ‘over there’, aka in the Global South, and that regulation — which the UK has plenty of — is enough to stop it from happening. On the podcast, van der Weerd concluded that “constraints are far more powerful drivers of action than intention” — in other words, most people have good intentions, but the incentives and limitations baked into business models push them towards bad actions.
To change this, brands need to take accountability for their role in the scandal, and shift the fundamental values that so many fashion supply chains are built on, says Jyoti. “It’s the business model and the pricing. Brands want shorter timelines, quicker deliveries and products aimed at young consumers whose affordability is limited. That creates a ripple effect.”
Fewer white papers, more action
While community organisations focus on creating safe spaces for former and current garment workers, and making sure they are empowered to stand up for their rights, others are trying to cultivate a creative ecosystem for Leicester. Local designer and upcyclist Sally-Anne Kirk founded Leicester Fashion District last year, working with fashion students at De Montfort University (DMU), down the road from her studio, to drum up job opportunities in the city and discourage creative talent from leaving for London. Kirk herself studied at De Montfort as a mature student and trained in pattern-cutting and sewing at the Fashion Technology Academy run by Holloway under the Fashion Enter umbrella. “A lot of fashion students graduate with no jobs to go to,” she says. “I know a lot of manufacturers here who are so good. I didn’t want to see Leicester lose our industry.”
Her ultimate goal is to generate enough funding to build a ‘Made in Leicester’ fashion district in the city centre, with retail space at the bottom and affordable ateliers up top. “Our high street needs a bit of oomph and designers need jobs. Not just designers, but hair and makeup artists, photographers, stylists — fashion takes a village,” she says. “It would be a win-win for everyone.” In the meantime, Kirk has established a young creatives board, bringing together students from Wyggeston and Queen Elizabeth I College (WQE), Leicester College and DMU for roundtable discussions and regular fashion socials. She is also hosting workshops for aspiring designers who struggle to access conventional education, using leftover fabric from local factories.
Like many others, Kirk says she is tired of the scrutiny surrounding Leicester, none of which has led to meaningful change. “We don’t need any more white papers,” she says. “We need action.”
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