Kate Middleton, or Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge as she is now known, speaks to Michelle Obama wearing a Reoss dress stitched by women earning a little over $1 an hour. Source: Getty Images
The dress is now being sold at prices of almost $1000 on ebay after Kate chose it for her meeting with the Obamas. Picture: AFP Source: The Sunday Telegraph
- Outfit costs $270 but made for less than $23
- Seamstresses earn just $1.54 per hour
- Dress now advertised on eBay for $926
COSTING �175 ($270) on the high street, it helped Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, outshine America's First Lady.
But the Reiss dress (left) that made such an impression when the pair met last week was produced by women paid only 99p an hour in a poor suburb of the Romanian capital, Bucharest.
The camel-coloured "Shola" design was made for less than $23 by seamstresses earning $1.54 an hour� less than the average salary for textile workers in the eastern European nation.
British fashion chain Reiss is one of the Duchess's favourite brands. After she wore the dress to meet Barack and Michelle Obama, demand
for it surged, causing the company's website to crash and the dress to sell out within 24 hours.
It has been advertised for $926 on eBay. Yesterday, Reiss said it would re-release the dress in five to six weeks.
But that glamour is a far cry from the bleak working conditions of those who made it. The 170 staff of clothing firm Rimcor Ex work in a Bucharest factory that resembles an industrial compound, with bars on the windows, high walls and metal fences.
One dressmaker said the typical $259-a-month salary for workers at the factory was above the country's minimum wage. But the nation's National Institute for Statistics said it was $33-a-month below the average net salary for the clothing industry in Romania.
Another worker, 44-year-old Juliana Haita, described conditions as "good" and added: "This is normal for me. I'm used to it."
There is no suggestion that working conditions at Rimcor Ex are below par.
The factory's owner, Ioan Palea, said yesterday: "I had an inspection from the Work Ministry on Monday and Tuesday and they said everything was OK."
But Greg Muttitt, of anti-poverty charity War on Want, said yesterday:
"Kate Middleton has made a point of supporting British fashion - sadly, it appears, at the expense of overseas workers."
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