Vivki Woods uses the new Stella McCartney line of clothes to show that she needs just a little push to get the true glory of trade. Almost there, just that one more heave:

The Chinese are getting very muscly in the shoe arena
and European shoe manufacturers are gearing up to start fighting for
protectionist policies on shoes. Italy especially. They make very
expensive shoes, as I know to my cost, and they make them very
labour-intensively, in charming little artisanal shoe-factories in
Milan and Le Marche.

Grown-up women like me now
know that Free Trade = good, and Bonkers EU Protectionism = bad. We
also know that Cheap Tat = hot and fashionable, and Expensive Luxury
Clothing = sooo yesterday. Nevertheless, I can’t help my old-fashioned
cleaving to the luxury end of the market.

In an
admiring piece I read recently about China’s vast potential for the
world’s womenswear markets, a British retailer was talking about the
quality of Chinese workmanship. One throwaway line struck me: "They
have smaller hands," he said. They do. Smaller hands are perfect for
delicate work such as sewing "fabulous bow detail" on to the shoulders
of budget-priced McCartney trouser suits.

The
smallest hands of all, of course, belong to girls much younger than any
of the merry rioters fighting for them at H&M yesterday. Always
worries me, that.

About the shoes, what trade offers is choice. Those who wish to have the extremely expensive hand made by Carlo and Maria will still be able to have them. Just as the existence of Clarke’s did not put Lobb’s out of business.

As to the small hands of pubescent Chinese girls, the question is not the choices we would like them to have in a perfect world but the choices that they face in this imperfect one. They aren’t offering student loans for that course in Media Studies over there. There’s the fields, which is what they are escaping, the factories or prostitution.

Much better that those smallest hands are being used (given that the pen is not one of the available options) to sew cheap dresses rather than on a pick or a prick, don’t you think?