The Clean Clothes Campaign began pressing in February for leading fashion manufacturers and retailers to ban sandblasting, a technique for producing denim garments with an artificially worn look. The large amounts of silica dust produced can lead to silicosis, a potentially lethal pulmonary disease.
The process was banned in Turkey in 2009 after evidence was produced to show that 46 former sandblasting operators had contracted silicosis.
Almost 34,000 people have put their names to a petition drafted by the Clean Clothes Campaign and made available for endorsement on the website Change.org. The campaign's Italian spokeswoman, Deborah Lucchetti, said a number of well-known designers, manufacturers and retailers had already eliminated sandblasted denim clothing from their collections. They included including Levi's, H&M and C&A.
In Italy both Gucci and Versace had responded favourably. Gucci in particular was "responsible and advanced ... mature."
But Giorgio Armani, Roberto Cavalli and Dolce & Gabbana had not budged, Lucchetti said. "In these seven months, they are the only companies that have remained totally indifferent."
The campaign has singled out Dolce & Gabbana for special attention. Lucchetti said the Clean Clothes Campaign made a practice of notifying companies before they were targeted.
"Dolce & Gabbana telephoned me to say thanks for the information and that it did not interest them. I was pretty surprised. This is a serious issue. People have died because of sandblasting," she said.
In a statement issued on 5 August, Change.org accused Dolce & Gabbana of having "deleted posts on its Facebook wall after Change.org members posted messages demanding that the company ban sandblasting". None of the three companies named by the Clean Clothes Campaign could be reached for comment.
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