On March 2, 135 large cardboard boxes arrived at the Port of Savannah, in the U.S. state of Georgia. They were packed with hundreds of pairs of shorts in two patterns and delivered to the warehouses of the largest kids’-clothing-only retailer in the United States, the Children’s Place.
The first pattern featured blue pineapples on red cotton twill and the second, red palm trees on a dark blue background. Both styles were a bargain, just $19.95 at retail and, after discount, well under half that on TCP’s website at the time of writing. Belying their carefree design, the mini surfer dude shorts came from a cheerless factory in a landlocked city in a country half a world away — Shams Styling Wears, located on the outskirts of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka.