John Oliver gently reminds you about the high costs of your cheap clothes
For the first four minutes of John Oliver's main story on Last Week Tonight, it's all good news: "Trendy clothes are cheaper than ever, and cheap clothes are trendier than ever," and clothing executives get rich while consumers get great deals. Then Oliver asks the obvious question, about how clothing brands make so much money on cheap fashion? "Let's be honest: You know the answer to that," he added, taking a trip down memory lane to the 1990s and the intermittent outrage over sweatshops and child labor and garment factory deaths since.
"Look, this is going to keep happening as long as we let it," Oliver said. "So we need to show clothing brands not just that we care, but why they should." Toward that end, he announced that he's bought lunch for the heads of Gap Inc., H&M, Walmart, and a few other brands with cheap clothes, to be delivered on Monday. And if that sounds like a nice gesture, well, watch until the end. —Peter Weber
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
-
‘All of these elements push survivors into silence’Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
A running list of US interventions in Latin America and the Caribbean after World War IIin depth Nicolás Maduro isn’t the first regional leader to be toppled directly or indirectly by the US
-
How to rekindle a reading habitThe Week Recommends Fall in love with reading again, or start a brand new relationship with it
-
‘One Battle After Another’ wins Critics Choice honorsSpeed Read Paul Thomas Anderson’s latest film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio, won best picture at the 31st Critics Choice Awards
-
A peek inside Europe’s luxury new sleeper busThe Week Recommends Overnight service with stops across Switzerland and the Netherlands promises a comfortable no-fly adventure
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
