What really happens in fashion production (and why being slower, matters)

What really happens in fashion production (and why being slower, matters)

We achieved something incredible recently with the launch of SUZY top. It wasn't that SUZY sold out in the first 2 days of Boutiques Fair that felt like such an achievement; it was the fact that so many customers committed to pre-ordering with a waiting time of 2 to 3 months that felt like the real win!

Why pre-order is a game changer

Pre-orders have the potential to address many of the root causes behind our current sustainability crisis by going to the heart of the problem - overproduction and over consumption. With pre-orders, there is better prediction of inventory, cashflow and less risk of overproduction. In short, less waste. 

Overproduction is like the elephant in the room that never gets addressed at sustainability conferences where the focus is always on technology and innovations like new generation materials and ever more refined textile-to-textile recycling. In short, solutions that allow us to continue consuming at the current rate. 

Forget the commonsense adage that we can't recycle our way out of the sustainability crisis. In a world where consumers are incentivised to shop NOW and merchandise a year past their launch date are marked down by up to 70%, getting customers to wait isn't the strategy most retailers are comfortable with pushing. Most go on feeding customers the narrative that they are working on lowering the carbon footprint of their products or even better, to be 'carbon neutral' whatever that really means in real terms.

Pre-orders don't just address the overproduction problem. They have the ability to shape and influence the way manufacturers produce. More lead time = better visibility over production capacity = better planning = less overtime work for workers and less pressure on the factory floor.

Despite relatively long development lead times (it takes 6 months to a year for a style to go from design to commercial launch due to the logistics of offshore production), it's common knowledge within industry insiders that garment factories rely excessively on overtime work to meet production targets. In China, garment workers have on average 2 to 4 off days in a month. 

What working in Chinese factories taught me

As a designer in China & Hong Kong for a listed garment manufacturer that produced for global luxury brands, I witnessed how long the work day for factory workers were on the rare occassions when I spent nights in the factory rushing out collections. Workers would always break for dinner at 6pm, but work would commence again after dinner till 10pm or later. Work starts again at 8am the next day. Many of the garment workers whom I have personally spoken to see their families (children are often left in the care of their grand parents in rural China) once every one to two years.

"Overtime that exceeds 60 hours per week or leaves workers without one day of rest per week is common in global supply chains. Typically, factory workers seek overtime when they cannot afford basic expenses to support their families because of low pay earned during a regular workweek. Low pay is attributable to the pressure to produce products quickly and at a low cost based on expectations from buyers, retailers, and consumers."  - Fair Labor Association

Overtime work in garment manufacturing is a vicious, entrenched system because most factories in the global south compensate  workers using a piece-rate pay system. Garment workers are paid according to their basic wage + the number of pieces of garments that they produce.

According to a paper by the International Labour Organisation, many of the labour challenges faced by the fashion and textile industry are attributed to these sourcing practises:

  • Shorter production lead times and the accompanying penalties for missed production deadlines (e.g., price discounts, the need to send via air freight at supplier’s expense, etc.): A 2019 study on Indian textile companies showed that average lead times given by brands decreased from 87.39 days in 2012 to 77.67 days in 2017...
  • Order volume fluctuation: In many cases, factories are unsure of how large their orders will be from one month to another. As such, they try to keep a low number of permanent workers to avoid high overhead costs during downtimes. When there is a significant increase in order volume, factories resort to hiring temporary workers, imposing extensive overtime work...
  • Price squeeze: The real dollar price paid by buyers has been declining over the years. The price paid by buyers for apparel exported from India to the United States between 1994 and 2017, for example, has declined by 62.81% (Anner 2019)...

With current fast fashion prices going as low as $5 for a T-shirt with turn-around time from 'design' to launch in under 2 weeks, is it any surprise that workers need to work overtime in order to earn a living wage?

All clothing is made by hand. Even the most basic T-shirt is never fully mechanised.

"..garment creation is an industry that has proven impossible to automate. Human intuition and dexterity when it coming to manipulating fabrics is difficult to program efficiently for a variety of reasons.." - Christina Laba on medium.com

On this note, I want to highlight that "By Hand" in our brand name Su By Hand is a homage to the human component of clothing manufacturing. 

The way forward

The good news is - this CAN CHANGE!

And no, change does not always come in the form of innovations on the horizon. 

Change begins when we see the problem for what it is, simply and honestly without distortion. It should come across as common sense that so long as clothing is made by hand, fashion's social and environmental sustainability problems cannot be addressed without factoring in price and speed.

I want to caveat that garment production in China is not always a negative industry. On the contrary, it can also be a force for good in a rapidly developing country where rags to riches stories abound. I have met industrious factory owners who started out as humble factory workers. The more ethical factory owners go on to create truly amazing enterprises with extensive employee benefits ranging from lifelong learning expenses to financial support for workers' extended families.  

Clothing made by hand can be a victory or tragedy for humanity; it can be a victory if we celebrate the beauty of the hand made, and a tragedy waiting to unfold if we enslave human to achieve what machines are made to do i.e replication at speed and scale.

The next time you see a brand laying claims to how it's revolutionising fashion or 'democratising' it whilst offering T-shirts at less than the cost of a burger, think twice.

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