We feared that Prato would be the most dangerous place in Italy after the outbreak of the novel coronavirus. Friends, relatives, and colleagues who knew about our ethnographic research with Chinese migrants in greater metropolitan Tuscany began reaching out with trepidation.

Prato hosts Europe’s largest concentration of Chinese migrants, who have become formidable entrepreneurs and workers in the globalised iteration of the prestigious Made in Italy fashion industry. Like many politicians, public health officials, and journalists, our hunches about Prato becoming a Covid-19 epicentre were based on common sense. But not all common sense is good sense. Our predictions couldn’t have been more wrong — a reminder that origin stories of diseases are distinct from their life histories, which also manifest in social narratives and practices. And although such histories can be useful for tracing contagion within societies, these histories can also be used for political purposes that may be as dangerous as the disease itself. In the case of Covid-19, knowledge related to its origin story has fed xenophobic sentiments that target Chinese migrants as well as individuals who ‘look’ Chinese. The origin story evolved — or, might we say, mutated — into its own narrative of blame. Such mutations call for intervention.

As it turns out, the threat of stigma, knowledge of quarantine, and the will of solidarity motivated an entire migrant community to take action — similar to Chinese migrants elsewhere in Italy and Europe. Some 25,000 migrants with Chinese citizenship reside officially in Prato, and estimates suggest about twice that number live there when undocumented migrants are included. Among them, only a single person in the entire Region of Tuscany has been diagnosed with novel coronavirus.

Of about 7,500 positive cases of Covid-19, Tuscany’s Regional Health Agency (ARS) has identified the national origin of 6,000 cases, of which 100 were ‘foreigners,’ primarily Albanian, and only one in the entire region was of Chinese nationality, according to Fabio Voller, the region’s ARS Coordinator of the Epidemiology Observatory.¹ The Province of Prato has a relatively low level of overall infection (404 cases, or 16 per 10,000, in a population of 257,716 as of April 15).²

Many Chinese citizens had experienced their first quarantine in mainland China after travelling to Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province in early February to celebrate Chinese New Year. Upon their return to Prato, messages circulated via the WeChat social media app, tracking individual travel departures and arrivals between Italy and China, health status, and phone numbers so friends could pressure others to follow self-quarantine measures.

Meanwhile, stories of violent acts of xenophobia from cities to the North and South circulated among tight-knit families that make up Prato’s 6,000 Chinese-owned firms. More than half of those firms (3,700) are categorised as confezioni, or cut-and-sew workshops. Other Chinese firms include fast-fashion wholesalers, textile factories, and services that support those businesses and the people working in them, such as real estate activities, restaurants, bars, and small retail shops.³

Worry grew among members of the Chinese community — diverse in terms of socioeconomic class, education, as well as documented status — that such violence could spread to Prato. They sensed being in a vulnerable position to become victims of a major blame campaign. Some feared for their lives. They wondered if they would be targeted and pressured to leave the country. Being seen as the source of contagion could devastate their social well-being and threaten their businesses and economic livelihood. Thus, the second quarantine happened as Prato’s Chinese residents collectively put themselves into self-quarantine several weeks before the Italian government issued the nationwide stay-at-home order on March 9.

Overnight, typically crowded streets turned silent. Fast-fashion businesses ground to a halt. The Chinese-populated neighbourhood known as Macrolotto Zero transformed into a ghost town. Bars and retail stores emptied out as did grocery store shelves. Teachers noticed that Chinese students were absent, and assuming that the students were staying home for fear of being bullied, authorities pleaded with parents to send their children back to school.

Given Italy’s nationwide lockdown, some Chinese residents are thus in their third quarantine. The extent of distancing among the Chinese community is particularly noteworthy considering the Wenzhou ‘spiritual insistence’ related to hard work, manifesting in intense just-in-time rhythms of the fast-fashion niche, in the pursuit of making money to pay off debt and becoming your own boss.

We reached out to several public figures from the Chinese community in greater metropolitan Tuscany. Franca Hong, until recently active in a youth association and herself a young entrepreneur of an accessory firm on the outskirts of Florence, spoke of a widespread sense of civic responsibility. She emphasised that the more people adhere to the stay-at-home orders with a sense of discipline, the sooner the situation will pass. Noting that business was largely at a standstill, she pointed to the power of employees in small Chinese family-owned firms as having a crucial role over production given the productive model of the Chinese firms; she credited the workers with insisting on not coming to work but rather on quarantining. She underscored a collective sense of being ‘in the same boat’ as fashion makers and distributors shut down production and sales outlets. This, too, has strengthened a sense of solidarity. A silver lining in this period of pause has been to prompt people to reflect on life and to prioritise health and family.⁴

Marco Wong, elected to Prato’s city council in June 2019, identified guiding sentiments in three phases: fear of a formidable contagion stigma; solidarity against discrimination; and a desire to show goodwill through donations of medical masks and protective gear. He defined the first phase as deeply painful as people learned through social networks and word of mouth of troubling incidents of xenophobia. There was profound worry among the Chinese migrants in Prato that they would become victims of hostility. In turn, a second phase gave rise to sentiments of solidarity and actions of good will, including some workshops converting operations to the manufacture of masks. He characterised the third phase as Chinese being recognised as saviours of the patria, or the nation, as manifested through widespread gifting of essential items such as masks and other medical equipment.⁵

It’s worth pointing out that the migrant population is fairly young and less affected by the virus. Nevertheless, it is remarkable that, given the concentration of Chinese residents, Prato ended up being the last province in Italy to register persons affected with Covid-19. The city boasts the highest percentage of migrants anywhere in Italy. Of its total population of 195,089, some 42,371, or 22 percent, are classified as stranieri, or foreigners. (The national average is around 8.5 percent foreign residents.) Registered Chinese migrants yield numbers of around 58 percent of official resident foreigners.

The situation has profoundly shifted the image of Chinese migrants. Prato’s mayor, Matteo Biffoni, described his city as ‘in the eye of the hurricane’ and pointed to the Chinese citizens’ behaviours as ‘exemplary’ for leading the way to a circolo virtuoso, or a virtuous society. In an article published in the national newspaper La Repubblica, he underscored that the Chinese community had set a good example for Italians. It is no coincidence that Biffoni himself ran his electoral campaign against hate and, rather, on a platform of love.⁶ The behaviours among Chinese residents of Prato appears to have convinced others of the necessity to follow strategies aimed at limiting the risk of contagion; the effectiveness of such practices was also evident from reports of decreases in infections in China.

An unexpected consequence of Covid-19 has been a sea change: the very community that a New York Times article pointed the finger at to explain Italy’s racist roots and lurch to the populist right has gone from being a source of fear and resentment to being one of the most admired in Italy.⁷ ‘They’ve saved us,’ remarked Anna Ascolti, a psychologist friend who works in Prato’s public health agency.

Prato has been a laboratory of globalisation particularly related to fast fashion. Future prospects point to the city as different sort of laboratory. One blogger, Huang Miaomiao, who uses the hashtag ‘I am not a virus,’ #iononsonounvirus, envisioned this future as including dialogue, innovation, and mutual responsibility.⁸ Others underscore possibilities for diversifying the economy through new creative enterprises that build on the region’s fashion strength. Supply chains may be reimagined. Temporalities may shift or at least be questioned. New ways to realise sustainability for people and the planet may emerge.

As anthropologists who have collaborated during the past decade to understand the ways in which families, individuals, and institutions cope with globalisation, we want to emphasise that disease origin stories, while important, can lead to dangerous narratives. We need to recognise that the hegemony of global supply chains to produce the clothes that are advertised, stocked in retail outlets, bought and worn should not lead to ‘pathologising’ the entrepreneurs and workers who produce them. We need to imagine different futures that push back against demographic nationalism. We need not to criminalise the people who work hard to make clothes as they follow a desire to realise dignified lives. Diseases have not only origin stories and life history narratives but also afterlives. Social narratives related to coping with transmission and prevention practices also need to be tracked, understood, and respected.

Elizabeth L. ‘Betsy’ Krause is the author of Tight Knit: Global Families and the Social Life of Fast Fashion (University of Chicago Press, 2018) and professor of anthropology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Massimo Bressan is president of IRIS, a social and economic research institute in Prato, Italy.

1. Interview with subject, April 14, 2020. See also https://www.ars.toscana.it/images/qualita_cure/coronavirus/rapporti_Covid-19/Report_coronavirus_14_aprile_2020.pdf ↩

2. https://lab.gedidigital.it/gedi-visual/2020/coronavirus-i-contagi-in-italia/?ref=RHPPTP-BH-I251620115-C12-P2-S1.12-T1 ↩

3. http://www.po.camcom.it/doc/public/2019/STR_2018.pdf ↩

4. interview with subject, March 31, 2020 ↩

5. Interview with subject, April 3, 2020 ↩

6. https://www.repubblica.it/dossier/politica/virus-in-comune-sindaci/2020/04/03/news/coronavirus_intervista_sindaco_prato_matteo_biffoni-253004431/?ref=search&fbclid=IwAR3RzeUWPPllgBPc2BzejyJAS-m3B88raH9oipiuaSfZVcjRvyAIwjz5v7I ↩

7. P S. Goodman and E Bubola. 2019. ‘The Chinese Roots of Italy’s Far-Right Rage,’ The New York Times,https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/05/business/italy-china-far-right.html ↩

8. https://www.huffingtonpost.it/entry/doppia-quarantena-cosi-i-20-mila-cinesi-di-prato-hanno-affrontato-il-virus_it_5e830158c5b6d38d98a4343d ↩

The air was still warm when I flew with my family to Xiamen, on the southeastern coast of China, to visit Ian, Min and their baby son Lucien. On the way there I was thinking about the garments that I own, and that Min and Ian have made. There’s the winter coat that wraps around my body like a bathrobe. A pair of white trousers with an elasticated waist that I wore so many times when expecting my own baby daughter that the hems have grown permanently grubby. And the qipao-like blouse and dress hanging in my wardrobe right now waiting for a party, any party. The life of each of these garments once began here, in a small island factory. Someone drew them, someone cut them, someone sewed them, someone stitched ‘Ms Min’ into their collar or seam. Then how many steps more before that coat, or dress, or blouse, ended up in my own wardrobe slowly accumulating all the marks and stains of everyday use? When does the life of a garment begin, and when does it end? 

Min Liu: I’m lucky I guess. I never really had to think about how to sell my clothes. In the beginning I sold online and clients got in touch with me directly, and then eventually someone from Lane Crawford asked for a meeting so I took a rack of clothes with me and flew to Shanghai. And now Ian is responsible for the sales. I know I’m fortunate, because I’m really not good at talking about my work. Even in fashion school I could never do that part well. I have the feeling that if you talk too much about the meaning of something, some of that meaning slips away. Also, I’ve gone through so many interviews with questions about China and Chinese design. It gets tiring. I used to hate being grouped together with other Chinese designers in the ‘China column’ in some Western magazine. But I don’t take it personally anymore. People will always stereotype others. I can’t change that. My feelings can’t be stereotyped though, and as long as I can grow and evolve and avoid feeling trapped by those stereotypes, it’s okay. The way I look at it is, I don’t need to separate from my roots, nor do I need my roots to define me.

Ian Hylton: Min always says that fashion has no flag. As a company, as designers or as a couple we don’t define ourselves by being Chinese. Nationality might be important as you become known – think of the Japanese or the Belgians – but as time goes on you’re just another designer. I joined the company four years ago, and one of the first things I did was to go on a sort of grand tour to introduce the Western market to the brand. I took a collection of my favourite things with me and went to London, New York, Paris and Milan to meet with agents, stylists and other people in my network to get a sense of how the industry would respond. Ms Min was still only sold at Lane Crawford in Shanghai then, but we felt quite sure the company was ready to blow. What I did before Ms Min? Oh, I was at Ports for years. Min and I had been dreaming about working together, but it took some time before we felt ready.

Min: You’re talking about ‘the dream’ of working together. But then our dream became our nightmare. [Laughs]

Ian: True. [Laughs] It was really tough at first. The dynamics we’d established as a couple went out the window.

Min: Going back to the point we made earlier, I mean, what does ‘Made in Italy’ or ‘Made in France’ actually signify today? What does it mean when a brand can make their garments in China, then ship them back to Europe, add a detail and sew a ‘Made in Italy’ label into the collar? Where is the integrity in that? Part of our work has inevitably become to show that ‘Made in China’ obviously isn’t synonymous with sweatshop labour anymore.

Ian: We’re well aware that we’re educating the market. Do you know how often I get asked by Europeans or Americans, ‘Are you actually going to deliver this quality? This is what the bulk will look like?’ I get it. Many companies make gorgeous samples, only for the bulk to be much worse. But still. It gets tiring. I remember talking to an agent in New York. He told me, ‘A luxury brand from China? I just don’t see it.’ Later I met him in person; he came to see the clothes. He walked around, looked at everything and didn’t say a word. Total silence: I didn’t know what to think. Then he turned and said, ‘This is absolutely brilliant. I take back everything I said before about Made in China.’ That was four years ago. But we still have to deal with the industry’s prejudice. I remember getting in touch with an Italian agent, and before she agreed to meet she said, ‘That house on your Instagram – is it yours?’ I told her it was. ‘Okay, we can talk.’ [Laughs] What a snob.

Min: ‘Educating the market’ is more of an Ian term. I’d say that time proves everything. For me success lies in longevity and sustainability. Over time, if your work is consistently good, people come around.

Ian: But think about it for a second sweetie. Not just in terms of East versus West but also within China. We’re constantly educating the market: about fabric, about trim. Nàme guì. We hear that often – so expensive! So we have to explain the attention to detail that goes into every design and every garment. We go to the front line – to the sales staff – to educate them about the brand. The front line never gets enough attention. Every single account we have, we organise a breakfast or lunch for the floor staff so we can explain who we are and what we stand for, and why the price is what it is.

Min: That makes me think of the first expensive garment I ever bought: a Miu Miu sweater. I still wear it. I bought it the first time I went to London, at the Miu Miu boutique on Bond Street. I just saw it and immediately wanted it. They only had a size 40 and it was the last piece. I’m a 36 but I had to have it. So I bought it, and then felt totally guilty because of how expensive it was. But imagine – I’ve worn it for sixteen years now. I remember my student days in London so well. I was scared of Selfridges; it seemed like a monster to me. [Laughs]

Ian: My first expensive piece was a Jean Paul Gaultier blazer. I stalked it. I remember seeing it in the window at the start of the season at this store in Toronto and thinking, ‘This is the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen.’ I get emotional just thinking about it. It was a peak lapel double breasted jacket, and it had pleats, tuxedo pleats, on the body. It was for dreaming. Whatever happened to it? I guess I must have handed it down to somebody; it’s what I usually do. I love giving things away. Actually, the life of a garment is so important – what happens to it after it leaves the store? We always talk about that. There’s a story I sometimes tell my team: I get up in the morning but I don’t feel great. You know those days? Well I shower and go get dressed, but nothing feels right. I feel fat today; nothing fits right. Finally I get to a shirt that I like the way I look in. It’s the right amount of cool and I don’t feel fat in it. It’s Sacai. The second I get in the car with my driver I get on my phone and start looking for other Sacai pieces to buy because I want to feel like this again. That’s how it works. It’s that simple. Our customers are constantly telling us stories about what they did while wearing something of ours. Where they went, how they felt. I was at a clinic in Miami recently – don’t ask me why – and this woman told me, ‘Whenever I wear one of your dresses, I feel like a goddess.’ And I know she looks good wearing that dress, because she feels good in it. And she feels good because of the attention Min puts into the lightness of the fabric: the fact that it isn’t hemmed but silk bound and that it has an edge that’s light and moves, that the shoulder slips ever so slightly so it could be on the shoulder, or off the shoulder. The fact that if she’s having a fat day, she can wear it loose, and otherwise she can pull it tight with a belt. Oh, you don’t think women talk about ‘fat days’ anymore? Maybe I’m bringing too much of my old life into this; being on the shop floor and listening to how women talk about themselves. I spent so many years on the floor you know. I love the floor. After all, what moment is more crucial to the life of a garment?

Anja Aronowsky Cronberg is Vestoj’s editor-in-chief and founder.