Sewing, needlework, textile arts, all centuries-old skills developed for survival, as well as self-expression, continue to make a comeback in radical ways throughout Latin America and Spain. While parallel currents continue to run between fast fashion and slow fashion, even in flagship stores such as H & M, market projections are leading companies to overhaul their tried-and-tested business models. New generations are demanding environmental mindfulness and consciousness of who is behind each garment.

Popular culture's obsession with sewing only grows as reality shows such as Spain's popular Maestros de la costura [Masters of Sewing] (2018), a successful adaptation of Britain's Sewing Bee, averages almost two million viewers and continues for a third season. The successful television series Velvet, after celebrating four seasons, released a sequel, Velvet Colleción, this time situated in Barcelona in 1967. The protagonist, Ana Rivera, dares to leave the confines of her humble beginnings as a seamstress in Madrid. After finding success in the exclusive business of haute couture in Madrid, she begins to dream big: first aspiring to success in Barcelona and later becoming a global franchise.

With more bespoke clothing stores popping up throughout major urban areas, the value of knowing the story behind garments becomes even more apparent. While sweatshops have been under the critical eye of the public, conflicting business models involving sewing in prison settings, rehabilitation and profitable business further tangle the ethical complexities involved in garment production. In “Made on the Inside, Worn on the Outside,” Elizabeth Paton and Andrea Zarate describe Peru, in particular, as a new case study involved in prison and sewing labor. The authors recognize that fashion and prisons have a long history stretching as far back as the eighteenth century. In the United States and Britain, government bodies or correctional boards have historically looked to prison settings for mass-produced, low-value items; at the end of the twentieth century, with a record number of people behind bars, private companies too – many fashion conglomerates included – turned to prisons for mass labor.