Critical of clothes produced in China – Dagsavisen

The debate has long raged about whether it is OK for Norwegian national kits to be produced more cheaply abroad. In 2018, designer and bunad manufacturer Siri Sveen Haaland went out of her way to mobilize local manufacturers to fight against the outsourcing of bunad stitching to low-cost countries in Eastern Europe and Asia. She is still strongly critical of the fact that bunades and parts of the Norwegian national costumes are produced in China and Vietnam.

– The fact that we have no requirements for information about branded clothing in Norway means that it is often unclear where, and under what conditions, things are produced. Sellers are not obliged to provide detailed information about it. The worst thing is that some people choose to produce in countries like China and Thailand, where you can’t control the working conditions at all, says Siri Sveen Haaland, who runs the sewing studio Sidserk Systue Sveen in Oslo on a daily basis.

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Unethical

Exploitation of women and children in poor countries is a major problem in the fashion and textile industry. Siri Sveen Haaland hardly thinks bunad production is any different.

– This is a work that has been built up by women over the past 120 years. And now, as we are finally starting to get control over equality and wages here in Norway, someone is moving the work out, and starting to exploit women and children in other countries instead. I think that would be going a little backwards, she says.

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– In addition, there is a climate issue about how many times it is OK to send a bunad back and forth by plane. It will be like sending fish to China to be processed and packaged. Bunad is basically very short, it can be sewn from locally produced materials. But when you send the product back and forth, the climate footprint increases, says Siri Sveen Haaland.

This is a work that has been built up by women over the past 120 years.

— Siri Sveen Haaland, bunad manufacturer

Online course

There are around 400 bunads in Norway, and Siri Sveen Haaland “knows” around 40 of the most requested suits. Now she has started her own online school for anyone who wants to sew the bunad themselves.

– Bunadskulen.no is an online course, where there are currently 3,000 students who are now learning to sew bunad. We don’t have all bunades represented yet, but around 30 different courses, says Sveen Haaland. She says that there is everything from young people who want to sew themselves, to mothers who sew for their daughters’ confirmations. And, she has recipes for baby clothes.

– For the time being, mostly women’s coats are worn, men’s coats are a bit more demanding to sew, but we are working on courses for them as well.

In addition to the new bunad courses, she has started her own online store.

– Bunadverden is not very digitized. The age level of most of the manufacturers is approaching retirement age, they do not want to renew themselves, so there is a lot to address here. On the internet we can reach out to everyone, including young people who want to wear clothes, says Siri Sveen Haaland.

Time consuming and expensive

At Heimen, they have outsourced some of the knitting process to China and Vietnam, in addition to having their own sewing studio in Estonia. General manager Hilde Øya says it is a cost issue.

– We offer clothes from most parts of our country. For some bunads, we also offer several variations of the same type of bunad, such as with 2 trials that are tailored in our sewing room here in Oslo, with 1 trial sewn here in Oslo and without a trial that is sewn in our sewing room in Estonia. Bunads with 2 tests are of course more expensive than those without tests, says Hilde Øya.

She says Heimen Husfliden has embroidered bunads and shirts in Asia and Estonia since the beginning of the 90s.

– When it comes to the embroidery itself, Heimen embroiders today in Vietnam, China, Estonia and some at the sewing room in Oslo, says Hilde Øya and explains that this depends on the type of bunad and which step in the sewing process the embroidery enters.

– There is great variation in women’s undergarments and how much embroidery there is on the various undergarments, but embroidering a women’s undergarment takes between 100-250 hours. If we were to do this in Norway, the price would be NOK 100,000 more than it is today, and unfortunately there are no customers willing to pay.

– Embroidering, for example, a Hardanger shirt for women takes around 130 hours and an apron takes around 110 hours to embroider. If we were to do this in Norway, both shirts and aprons would have been much more expensive, says Hilde Øya.

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