Loro Piana placed under judicial administration after details emerge of its clandestine production in illegal Chinese workshops right in Milan

Serious labour violations in the Italian fashion industry have long been a matter of talk, and every so often the fashion world is rocked by another scandal. Dior, Valentino and Armani have all been caught red-handed. Now it turns out that Loro Piana, one of the most expensive European brands, is sewn by migrants in conditions little short of slavery, toiling 18 hours a day with no chance of rest and, you may be sure, without fair pay.

So it emerges that these garments, not the prettiest, to put it mildly, yet outrageously expensive, and in a tiresome beige palette, which in part gave rise to the wearisome visual trend of "old money", are in fact so old that they hark back to the slaveholding order. As for the loyal customers who paid hundreds of thousands for rather ordinary things, it seems that what they were actually paying for was, after all, "Chinese" quality.