Special interlude: what about tariffs?

First things first: No, tariffs are not going to bring apparel production back to the US any time soon. Building the production infrastructure for that would take at least a decade.

Brands have three options:

• take a hit in profitability due to the tariffs (very unlikely when shareholders are involved),
• increase prices for customers (possible, but then again, we are addicted to cheap clothes)
• decrease the cost of producing that clothing.
  In this post, we will be exploring how corporate teams cut costs to produce garments, resulting in low quality and worse conditions for workers. Tariffs will result in an even more extreme version of this process: clothes get more garbage-y, and workers suffer more.

It always starts with swapping the fabric/yarn…

• This is going to surprise all of you sewists and knitters, but the fabric/yarn is always the most expensive part of a garment in the mass fashion/fast fashion realm. It SHOULD be the labor and skill required to create these garments, but that’s just a testament to the worker exploitation in the fashion industry.
• Swapping the fabric is imperative.  Changing to cheaper fabric can get the style 75% of the way to the target cost. In many cases it is a polyester blend. It’s no wonder that 65-70% of new clothing is synthetic.
• Synthetic fabric technology has gotten really good.  It’s so hard to spot because it can have different kinds of textures, drapes, and washes that disguise it.   And customers rarely reject it.  That’s the thing: retailers would stop using so much polyester if people stopped buying it. After all, they are in the business of making money.
• The team might swap the fabric 2,3,4 times until they find one that works with the design, meets the price target, and also doesn’t have a high duty (tariff) rate. It also can’t be too flammable or not take the dye color well. 
• If it’s an item that kinda has to be a natural fiber (like t-shirts), they might try to add a little bit of poly to bring the price down.
• If that’s not an option, they will use a thinner fabric.
• If it’s a sweater, the team will swap to an open, loose knit so that it uses less yarn and weighs less.

Yes, the fabric used in today’s clothing is not as good as it was before fast fashion.

Next, it’s time to cut the cost of trims.

• We’re talking about buttons, zippers, snaps, and hooks.  All the functional pieces of a garment.  Most of these save only a few cents, but fashion is a pennies game.  Every cent matters when you are trying to hit your sales target. In an industry that that makes 150 billion garments every year, even one penny can generate $1.5 billion in profit.
• Zippers can often have the biggest impact, with a swap from a nice YKK metal zipper into a no-name, semi plastic zipper saving $1-2. Sometimes more if it’s a huge zipper.  Or maybe the zipper might be dropped altogether in favor of an elastic waist or smocking.
• Snaps and buttons will be swapped into less expensive versions, too. Or removed altogether! Even shifting from functional buttons with buttonholes to merely decorative buttons makes a difference.

And then the details start disappearing.

• At this point in the process, the garment probably still closely resembles the original (especially if you take off your glasses). But that will change in this step, when the team is trying everything it can to hit the target price.
• Pockets will disappear first. In fact, production probably already assumed that would happen and has revised costing based on that.
• The lining will be removed (or swapped to something cheaper or shortened). This is why linings are so shoddy these days.
• Maxi skirts become minis. Long sleeves become short sleeves. Tops are turned into crops.
  Embellishment will be minimized.
• I can’t help but think this part of the process actually creates fashion trends. If you are only offered crop tops,  you’ll start to think that longer shirts are no longer cool.  Would you feel differently if you knew these were the only option just because they are cheaper?

But wait…there’s more…

• Sizes are dropped. It might mean swapping from numbered sizes to S-XL. Or skipping the largest and smallest sizes. Options like “tall” and “petite” are off the table. Less sizes = lower cost.
• Fittings and samples are skipped because they cost money (and time). So nothing is “exactly right” when it goes into production.
• Production pushes over and over again on the factory to come down on pricing. The factory will revisit their costs. They know if they don’t give in, the order won’t happen. So they might decide to cut their staff or pay them less. Or subcontract to another factory that pays even less. Maybe that factory will subcontract to an even cheaper factory that uses forced labor or child labor. These low costs and high profit targets have a human cost.