Portside

Students show their antifascist colors

Nobel awards an African author — what's the history? School boards showdowns, and more

Outside of fabulous photos, parties, people, and sales, the fashion capital also produces world-class waste.

Campus speech; Schooling for sale; Foodies' fate; Trump's camps; Hussle's gift; New holiday; Yearning to breathe free

Colbert out on a Limbaugh; IKEA goes windy; The CEO myth; Normcore: threat or menace; Where's the grief?; Class war with a smiley face

After meeting India's "sumangali girls," I'll never look at cute, cheap clothes the same way again.

Reader Comments: NBC Nightly News Report - Grassroots Opposition to Military Action Against Syria; AFL-CIO and ILWU; March on Washington; 40th anniversary of Chile coup; Announcements: No one should die for fashion - Sept 6-New York; Veterans For Peace Speak Out-New York-Sept 9; #femfuture Retreat-Oct. 20 - 22 - Rhinebeck, NY - Scholarships Available; Sept 21st: Draw the Line against Keystone XL; Chilean posters-1970-73 Exhibit-New York-Sept. 23; STOP WARS - Yard sign

Strip off the gloss and you have a workforce of young women classified as independent contractors, not covered by minimum wage laws, who are often paid in clothes rather than cash, and are in debt to their modeling agencies.

Underneath global apparel's glitzy makeup lies an unglamorous underbelly - one of violent working conditions and structural faux pas. Case and point: factory fires. In September 2012, 300 garment workers lost their lives when a factory caught ablaze in Pakistan - two months later, 112 deaths after a similar tragedy in Bangladesh. Add China to the list, and 2012 will go on record as the deadliest year to be a garment worker.