KARACHI, Pakistan — In a slum dotted with shimmering pools of sewage, a garment worker nods in recognition as Sydney Sweeney slowly zips up her jeans in an American Eagle Outfitters advertisement playing on a smartphone.
But it's not Sweeney she recognizes — it's the jeans and jacket. This woman, a single mother, has worked on American Eagle production lines and seen those denim styles and similar models. "I know how all of them are made, because I have worked on them," she says.
When Sweeney's advertisement for American Eagle landed in July last year, with the tagline "Sydney Sweeney has great jeans," it triggered debate over whether it was a winking reference to eugenics because of Sweeney's va-va-voom beauty: thin, blonde, blue eyes, large breasts. Following the controversy, American Eagle said in a September 2025 statement that "'Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans' is and always was about the jeans." (Sweeney did not respond to NPR's request for comment.)
Missing from the debate over whether the advertisement was about jeans or genes was any significant reflection on who actually made the American Eagle jeans that Sweeney was wearing — as in, the workers. The majority of garment factories operate out of Asia, so most Americans will never meet the workers making their clothes or see the conditions they're made under.
The workers who make Sydney Sweeney's jeans
Workers like that single mother. She asks that we refer to her as S., the initial of her first name, because she fears her bosses at the garment factory where she works will fire her if she's identified. "If you raise your voice, they'll push you out," she says. "We are helpless."
S., a young woman, works at a factory run by a company called Artistic Garment Industries, where she says she's paid about $144 a month, a sum that supports her son and her mother.
She says the factory is "oppressively hot." It was 106 F outside when we met her, and she says the factory inside is even hotter. She says it's hard to leave her workstation to drink water because she has to meet her production targets. She says she has to check the quality of 1,000 to 1,600 pieces of clothing a day — and she's fainted three times this year. "I feel faint, and I can barely stand. I have no energy in my hands and feet," S. says. "They don't even let us sit down." But S. says she has no other options.
Artistic Garment Industries confirmed it makes clothes for American Eagle but tells NPR that it does not push out workers who complain about their working conditions. The company says it has a robust complaints system that workers can use and says it frequently checks on temperatures inside different parts of its factories.
In response to questions NPR sent to American Eagle, the company says it's "committed to working directly with our suppliers to protect the health, safety, and rights of workers. We take the concerns raised by workers — and those whom NPR interviewed — very seriously."
S. is one of around 20 workers we interviewed over the spring and summer in Bangladesh and Pakistan, two of the world's biggest global garment production hubs outside of China. Those men and women worked in five different factories. All of those workers asked NPR not to use their full names and to use only the initial of their first name, worried they'd lose their jobs or be blacklisted from future jobs if they were identified.
Inside the world of fast fashion
Although we focused on the American Eagle jeans worn by Sweeney for the 2025 campaign, the reporting led to a bigger issue: how fast fashion is made, because garment factories make clothes for multiple brands at once. Workers we met told us they made clothes for Levi's, Massimo Dutti, The Gap, H&M and American Eagle. They said it's common knowledge at the factories which brands they are making clothes for, in part because some workers are stitching on the labels.
The garment workers we spoke to offered strikingly similar accounts. And they echoed worker testimonies in multiple reports by labor and climate rights groups. The workers told us they're paid low wages, even as they're expected to reach what they say are unreasonably high production targets, often laboring in sweltering factories.
These are production targets like stitching 200 sleeves an hour or checking the quality of a thousand pieces of clothing a day. The workers we interviewed say they are unable to hydrate or cool down properly, even as extreme heat caused by climate change makes their workplaces and homes even hotter.
It can be four to six degrees hotter inside a factory, says Jason Judd, executive director of the Global Labor Institute at Cornell University, which researched heat inside garment factories and worker homes. "You've got all those bodies, all that material, all that machinery putting off heat. You've got ventilation problems."
"We're starting to see fainting, heat illness, exacerbation of chronic disease, even death," says Cara Schulte, a researcher at Climate Rights International. She authored two reports on the impacts of heat on garment workers.
Schulte says workers are put under that extreme pressure to reach production targets. A major reason is that brands demand their suppliers make enormous volumes of clothes on tight deadlines and on thin profit margins. And she says garment workers are vulnerable to the heat because they're clustered in countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan. She cites U.N. publications stating that those factories are "in areas that are warming faster than the global average, that are [already] incredibly hot and humid."
H&M, one of the brands that workers identified making, said it "put great effort" in ensuring fair payment to its suppliers and that labor costs are "excluded from the price negotiations of our product orders" to ensure that worker wages were not driven down.
Citing her own research, Schulte of Climate Rights International says garment workers are compelled to risk their health to survive. It's not a choice, she says. "Workers are not choosing to take these risks," she says. "They're being forced into them by poverty."
One worker's survival strategy
Like a woman who asks we call her R. When we met in February in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka, R. said she was working six days a week, at least 12 hours a day, for $140 a month at a garment factory run by a company called MBM, which makes denim clothes, including for Levi's. Her job is to stitch 150 pieces of fabric per hour, which are assembled into jeans.
R. says she's considered old for a garment worker — around 40 — and says she's slowing down. She says she's berated by managers who tell her, "Why aren't you speeding up your work?" She says, "If you're short by even a single piece, you face a lot of harassment."
R. says she's managed to meet her targets so far. "Allah has kept me safe," she says. She says friends of hers who could not meet their targets were fired by the company. To reach her targets, R. says, she stays at her station throughout her shift. "Even going to the washroom has become extremely difficult."
So despite Dhaka reaching 98 F this summer, R. says she doesn't drink much water to avoid the need to take bathroom breaks. There's no AC on the factory floor, but R. says managers run ceiling fans and keep windows open.
R. says that if workers feel faint, their bosses will let them rest in a sick room for about 20 minutes. But, she says, management will terminate employment if workers say say they feel sick too often, so she pushes herself to keep going.
MBM did not respond to questions from NPR about worker allegations.
Despite the issues she raised, R. says she works in a good factory. She says the pay is higher than other garment factories. And if she's terminated, she says the company will pay the wages, including overtime, that she's owed. But she doesn't want to be let go.
Taking the heat
These garment factories are blazing hot in part because it's expensive to retrofit them with air conditioners. A manager for MBM, who asked that NPR not use their full name because they are not authorized to speak to media, says that the company needs a brand to commit to purchasing long term in order for retrofitting the factory to pay off. The manager says no brand had committed to that kind of long-term business.
Conditions in Bangladesh are still better than in other garment hubs, because of the scrutiny after a building collapse killed more than 1,100 garment workers in 2013. Just three weeks after that disaster, a legally binding commitment called the International Accord emerged between hundreds of brands, companies and trade unions in Bangladesh to protect worker health and safety. So far, 248 global brands and retailers have signed on, covering 2.8 million workers. A version of the International Accord was established in 2023 in Pakistan but has a smaller footprint.
There's meant to be more progress on protecting workers from extreme heat soon. Last December, the International Accord agreed to develop a protocol on heat stress. That means keeping workers cool will be an enforceable commitment for brands. For apparel companies in Bangladesh and Pakistan that have signed on to the accord, the International Accord staff will regularly inspect factories to ensure they're kept cool.
Judd, of the Global Labor Institute, says he believes there will be positive changes because the garment industry knows "they've got a problem — whether it's from a worker rights perspective, or from a business perspective, workers are slowing down, productivity is falling," he says. Either way, "you've got an interest in reducing the heat stress."
But for now, workers in Pakistan, in particular, described sweltering conditions, particularly in the port city of Karachi, one of the world's hottest garment hubs, according to the U.N.'s International Labor Organization.
In a dusty bazaar in Karachi, we met seven factory workers who mostly worked for two companies: Artistic Garment Industries — S.'s employer — and another called Artistic Milliners. Both produce clothes for big Western brands.
In their interviews with NPR, women who work, or worked, for Artistic Garment Industries described vomiting, fevers and fungal skin infections that they say were caused by the heat.
One young woman worker is I.
Her workday starts at 8:30 a.m. She says she is expected to work beyond her regular, nine-hour shift — often till 9 p.m. — and on Sundays as well, at some stretches. But she says she isn't paid all her overtime. I. also says supervisors on her floor berate workers if they leave their stations to drink water because it might cause them to miss their targets. So, I. says, "one person goes" to the water cooler and weathers the abuse, "fills a water bottle" and shares it with colleagues. I. says she gets about a glass full.
I. accuses the company of "eating" her money — and her health. "They exploit us," she says.
She says she suffers from dizziness and what she describes as a sense of fatigue and weakness. She pushes herself to work: "I can't lose my job — who else will support my family?"
Artistic Garment Industries contested these claims of unhealthful and exploitative working conditions. The company told NPR that it has a robust internal complaints system that workers could, and do, use. The company says it pays all overtime and does routine checks to ensure that the heat and humidity are not excessive on the factory floor. The company says it places water stations near workers to encourage them to hydrate and says it would not tolerate supervisors who pressure workers not to drink or use the bathroom.
Workers at Artistic Milliners described hot working conditions that badly impacted women and older male workers. One woman reported constantly feeling faint but said she pushed through. The workers said their supervisors let them drink water when they needed to, but they were pressured not to use the bathroom. Some workers said they were not paid for all the overtime they worked.
A 66-year-old former worker at Artistic Milliners, Sardar, said he was let go during the pandemic but had not been given compensation owed to him by the company. When NPR met him in June, he was homeless and relied on his children for meals. When we asked if he'd ever asked for charity, he began crying: "I'd feel ashamed if people thought I was begging."
Artistic Milliners did not respond to requests for comment about statements by Sardar and other workers. Parts of the company are certified through Fair Trade USA, a nonprofit organization that certifies companies that uphold high ethical standards for treatment of workers. NPR has sought comment from Fair Trade regarding allegations made by men and women who used to work for Artistic Milliners but has not received a response.
Answers from fast fashion brands
NPR also sent detailed questions to brands that workers said they made clothes for, alongside American Eagle.
Levi Strauss & Co. says it takes "allegations of worker rights violations seriously."
Inditex, the parent company of Zara and other labels, says Artistic Milliners, which makes clothes for one of its prominent brands, Massimo Dutti, was "subject to a corrective action plan." NPR contacted Inditex for clarification on what that corrective action plan entails but did not get a response.
Gap Inc. says it is "committed to supporting the rights and safety of workers."
H&M said in an emailed response that it has "required" AGI "to develop and implement corrective action plans to address the issues identified" by NPR: "Compliance with our requirements is a condition of our business relationship." H&M also said it recognized "the increasing risks associated with extreme heat" and is part of a pilot on heat stress in Pakistan conducted by the International Accord to develop "effective and sustainable solutions."
Those big brands partly ensure working conditions in factories are up to standard through regular audits. I. and other workers tell us they regularly saw auditors visiting their garment factory floors. They also tell NPR that supervisors give them advance warning. I. says that the supervisors "tell us to say that the working conditions are better than they actually are."
Anna Bryher is part of the workers' rights group Labor Behind the Labels, which published a report in July on the "clear mismatch" in the garment industry auditing system "between what the brands are saying and believing and hearing and what the workers report." Bryher says her findings suggest that the auditing system relied on by big brands is not working.
Artistic Garment Industries says workers may have confused regular updates informing workers of their rights with being told what to say at audits. The clothing brands that NPR reached out to did not comment on allegations regarding workers being told what to say during audits.
Some workers tell NPR that their supervisors warn them that if the workers were to criticize working conditions to auditors, the companies running the factories will lose business — and that they should paint a positive picture of their workplaces. "In other words," I. says, "they ask us to lie about everything."
With additional reporting by Hanan Biswas in Dhaka, Shahzaib Wahlah in Karachi and Abdul Sattar.
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