The Business of Fashion
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.
Hundreds of firefighters have been mobilised in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, to battle a huge fire that raged through a popular clothing market and blanketed the city’s oldest neighbourhoods in black smoke.
No casualties from the Tuesday morning blaze have been reported yet. Shop owners and fire officials told reporters that the Bongo Bazar market and three adjacent commercial precincts had been almost completely gutted.
“Some 600 firefighters... are working to bring the fire under control,” fire department spokesman Rakibul Islam told AFP, adding that the blaze began around dawn.
A military spokesman said in a statement that an air force helicopter had joined the firefighting effort.
ADVERTISEMENT
Aerial footage from the helicopter showed hundreds of people watching the fire from a nearby overpass.
The market is a popular destination for cut-price western fashion brands such as Tommy Hilfiger, selling clothes that were produced in the city’s garment factories but failed to meet export standards.
Distraught shop owners told reporters the blaze had left them destitute ahead of Eid, the Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan and the country’s biggest religious celebration.
“I borrowed 1.5m taka ($14,100) to buy Eid clothing,” one business owner said. “I’ve lost everything.”
By Agence France-Presse
Learn more:
‘How Can We Live?’: For Garment Workers, It’s Worse Than the Pandemic
Rising living costs and increasingly precarious work are trapping the low-wage workers who power the fashion industry in a crushing squeeze, Sarah Kent reports from Dhaka.
This week’s round-up of global markets fashion business news also features Latin American mall giants, Nigerian craft entrepreneurs and the mixed picture of China’s luxury market.
Resourceful leaders are turning to creative contingency plans in the face of a national energy crisis, crumbling infrastructure, economic stagnation and social unrest.
This week’s round-up of global markets fashion business news also features the China Duty Free Group, Uniqlo’s Japanese owner and a pan-African e-commerce platform in Côte d’Ivoire.
Affluent members of the Indian diaspora are underserved by fashion retailers, but dedicated e-commerce sites are not a silver bullet for Indian designers aiming to reach them.