I crocheted Taylor Swift’s questionably ethical viral dress

Thank you for making this video. I am from China and wants to give you more context, as a crocheter myself, I know that crocheters are heavily exploited here. The main demographic of crocheters here in China are stay at home moms with a lot of free time, so whole sellers would outsource projects like a crochet ball, a specific crochet doll with a particular pattern to these women. The crocheters would make them in bulk, because the whole sellers would buy them in bulk so they want the price as cheap as possible; a crocheter might spend 1-2 hours or more on a crochet doll with 3-4 color changes (with attached parts that needs to be sew on, I wish I can post picture on Youtube so I can show you how complicated that is), but they would be compensated 10-20 RMB (about 1.3-2.8 dollars) for each piece, and that is consider pretty good in the crocheting community. If that dress is sold for less than 200 dollars, I am very confident that the worker making this dress is getting paid about 2 dollars/hr

At the same time, as a Chinese person, I want to bring up the fact that American people and others are NOT buying good quality products made by Chinese people who have skills. Yes, we should bring low-wage labor to the forefront, but I would love for the international audience to invest in those that do sell good quality products. If a person is a skilled crocheter in China, there’s such a barrier to sell to the international consumers and they have no other means but to work for factories. If only western audiences pay more attention to Chinese crafters instead of overlooking Chinese productions in general, the Chinese artists could make more of a wage; otherwise, there is not much of a market for buying crocheted items as the US, so it’s difficult making a living wage from crochet.

"in my opinion, I don't think that affordable or cheap and crochet should ever be uttered in the same sentence together." 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

That dress is so cute and I loved your commentary. I honestly don't think anything Taylor Swift does is ethical but this especially is heinous. Considering she completely has the ability to only buy hand-made clothing where she can personally ensure the proper compensation for the maker I find it abhorrent that she even considered buying this dress. I also think the certified factory thing is kind of useless...idk how much it really means. I wish people would take this attitude towards crochet and and transfer it to other clothes as well because the truth is all clothing is handmade.

As a knitter, folks who are raging over items being sold as "crochet" when they're actually knit is baffling to me. Like, look, I'd rather everything be on the level when I buy an item... Obviously. But when I see a tag that says "crochet" on a $30 sweater and I grab it for a closer look, I'm ALWAYS happier to see it was actually knit and not actually crochet. I do not care if a machine made my affordable item in an affordable fashion, I DO care if someone isn't being compensated fairly for what is actually a very difficult skill. Crochet (and hand knitting) is HARD on your body, it takes years to develop the kind of speed and tension control it requires to hand make an item for a mass market. Not to mention, its a skill you only keep by taking proper breaks and making sure to stretch and do nerve glides to keep yourself healthy. Even when you're skilled, it takes hundreds (if not thousands) of hours to complete something like a dress.

I remember buying doilies back in the 80s. A 10” round intricate handmade….$25. The woman said “Oh I just do them while watching my soaps.” She definitely undervalued her time.

"We make sure to keep our margins low to be able to continue to work towards our vision of providing our (global north) customers with thoughtful designs at an accessible price" is really SO funny. I'm from Brazil and work as a software developer for an outsourcing company. My team is comprised of people from Brazil (outsourced) and from Europe (in-house) and the difference in how we're treated and how much we earn is substantial — we once got news that "our" team got an award for being one of the best performing teams in all of [company who outsources their work] which meant that our European coworkers got a hefty cash bonus and us Brazilians got... well, nothing. In-house employees also enjoy getting the company's expensive tech hardware for free and we don't even get like, coupons to buy them at more affordable prices. I do earn triple of Brazil's minimum wage, which is a "livable wage"; however, that doesn't really make it any less infuriating, and tech doesn't even come CLOSE to being as taxing on the body as crocheting at a factory scale. It's honestly insane to me that anyone would try to spin this as being an acceptable thing after watching this video!!

As soon as I saw that pricing, I flinched. I've been crocheting less than a year and still know that is completely unethical. Plus the Shein information, the secondhand sweatshop practices, etc. I was already aware of all of that but I am glad you highlighted it in this video as well. Very well done.

I think most people have no idea that crochet HAS to be handmade and is so time consuming, only people who create it themselves or are really into craft spaces know about this. There needs to be a lot more awareness about how garments are constructed, and hopefully more celebrities will think about fashion beyond the aesthetic.

Thank you for bringing this to forefront. Thank you for advocating for the fact that handmade crochet cannot be mass produced. I wish that more people understood this!

Also, using repetitive motions like one would crocheting this dress, could definitely cause physical problems especially since the makers might be crocheting as fast as they could.

I'm a crochet artist in the Philippines. That dress is roughly PHP 6000 on our currency (which is actually around fair price bc of cheaper yarn) and 100% would definitely go to the artist BUT that dress costing $119 dollars under an Australian fast fashion boutique, that's definitely cheap labor. That dress being cheap means they got it for an even cheaper price. Thank you so much for covering this issue!

I will say as a crafter who works at a yarn shop, the amount of people whos jaws drop when i tell them i charge $25 an hr and a teeshirt takes about 20 hours. Then they ask about our samples, and its always the one that's 50 years old and looks like the big Lebowski sweater, and i tell them $5k. The question the price and im always happy to explain the value of a crafter. Its so sad how uneducated people are. Even new crafters!

crochet headband and wristband = game time

So many people tell me I should sell my creations and I won’t because a lot of people can’t afford my time . I make my creations and give as gifts . Someone said that it was expensive what I would charge . I told them I am not a slave laborer and they went completely 18:01 silent . Thank you so much for pointing this out . I love this dress . That comment about the size is horrible . Freakin troll . You look adorable in your version of the dress .

54 minutes??! Thank you, crochet gods, for creating this individual.

This is a wild video for me to watch as an Australian who actually used to shop at the original verge girl shop years and years ago! I find the price that vrg girl sells this piece at especially galling when you consider that the minimum wage for a skilled textile worker in australia is somewhere in the ballpark of 30AUD an hour, meaning that if it was being produced here it would be retailing for 4 figures. Obviously that price would be out of range for many of us mere mortals, but for Taylor Swift? Chump change. Anyway, thanks so much for the tutorial! I'm excited to make my own soon!

I quit selling my crochet items because other makers won’t price their items in an appropriate way and I refuse to work for pennies. An item that takes me an upwards of 10 hours to make and $30 in yarn….i am not going to sell for $20.

The corporate communication you shared is a splendid example of lip service. The simple truth is that in a better world, we can’t have unlimited cheap-ass clothes. As consumers, we have to discipline ourselves to choose value, and to fill our closets with fewer things. If it means those things are better, and the makers of those things can live better lives. A lower price point makes a difference because so many people want cheap. But, if you make something awesome, plenty of people will shell out money for it. Plenty of idiots stand in line all night for the privilege of paying thousands of dollars for sneakers. It’s kind of like dating jerks versus dating good people. You just have to raise your head, know what you are worth, And let the right ones choose you.

I love the dress and I immediately thought she must have ordered it from an independent artist or an expensive fashion house that pays the artists at least $40 an hour. It would take me about 30 hours to make a dress like that and I’m fast. I’ve made similar garments many times and know how much work goes into it. Not to mention. When I saw the price tag I was blown away. Each dress is at least 20-25 hours of labor. Splitting it between four people still means the labor. Taylor especially has the resources and the intelligence to know she shouldn’t have bought that.