There's only one thing better than nice clothes and that's nice, cheap clothes. That was my attitude as a teenager, and so I happily drove for hours to visit some distant outlet, hoping to find a pair of Diesel jeans or a pastel Filippa K top.
When Lager 157 opened its first store in Gällstad outside Ulricehamn in the late 90s, it was like an Ullared – but with designer clothes. They bought up lots of garments from slightly more expensive denim brands and sold them at prices that even us middle classes could afford. The summer job salary went up quickly. Suddenly you could dress as cool as the popular girl in class, without having rich parents.
For more than a decade, Lager 157 has only sold clothes from its own brand, and the price list roughly corresponds to the menu at a hot dog stand. A t-shirt costs 30 kroner and a pair of cozy pants one hundred rupiah. On Instagram and Tiktok, young influencers speak warmly of the findings. What they forget to mention is that someone else has to pay a high price for your cheap jeans.
Recently, Sveriges Radios Ekot published an examination of a factory where one of Lager 157's subcontractors has its manufacturing. That the Swedish clothing chain collaborates with a factory in Myanmar is remarkable in itself. Since the military coup in 2021, when the military junta took over and the civil war became bloodier, several clothing chains have moved their production from the country.
In Ekot's reporting, a number of the factory's workers testify to an unbearable heat in the workplace, a lack of rights and a salary that is based on working up to a hundred hours of overtime a month in order to make a living. A woman tells us that she toils from half past eight in the morning until after nine in the evening, six days a week. The abuses have led to a major strike.
How does Lager 157 handle the criticism? In an email reply to Ekot, the company writes, among other things, that they "requested that the supplier carry out and document the necessary investigations" and correct any inaccuracies so that the collaboration can continue.
I have rarely read a weaker line. Warehouse 157 therefore thinks that it is reasonable to transfer the responsibility for an investigation to the factory management themselves. It's like asking Ulf Kristersson to study the politics of the Moderates. Where is your own quality control, Warehouse 157? How many textile workers must be forced to work to ruin before you start taking responsibility?
If you have manufacturing in a country like Myanmar, where the textile industry has repeatedly been criticized for forcing staff to work overtime, threatening those who get involved in trade unions and paying lousy wages, it is not the right time to act surprised when Ekot presents uncomfortable information. The factories in Myanmar are also known for a lack of transparency, which of course is practical when you want to round the rules and pressure prices. Last year Lager 157 passed four billion in turnover and made 768 million in operating profit.
"We democratize the fashion industry" reads the clothing chain's website. The fact that they are pumping money into a country where the popularly elected government has been overthrown is not as much said about.
The low-price chain from West Sweden simply doesn't care about how their clothes are made. As early as 2024, Ulricehamn's newspaper published an investigation that revealed that seamstresses in Bangladesh who made the chain's clothes did not receive a livable wage. And just like now in the case of Ekot, the company then declined to answer questions by phone.
Lager 157's handling of the revelations is as stale as their lineup. But soon it's time to buy Christmas presents and on the store shelves are billi... sorry, I mean democratic basics waiting to be found.
