Most of our garments are produced in Bangladesh, India, China, Vietnam, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Philippines. What Chinese producers and consumers need, whether it’s low-quality clothing that pollutes our waterways, garment workers working in harsh conditions, or high-quality clothing from state-of-the-art factories that workers are very happy with. In fact, we pay more by buying materials and making clothes in China.
Clothing is made in China because the price of labor there is cheap. Textile manufacturing and sewing are both low-skill and labor-intensive roles, so untrained workers can easily be used to mass-produce clothing. So China, a country with a large and unskilled workforce, is ideal for it.
One of the reasons we started partnering with our factories in China was because our partners taught us a lot about how we can make textile production more sustainable and less wasteful. However, the real reason our apparel and textile jobs are moving to China (and other countries) is that they have to in order to reduce costs.
China as the Source of Cheap Labor
Now that the quota has been lifted, the theory is that greedy producers will use slave labor costs and illegal subsidies to produce all the fabrics and clothing in Chinese factories. However, the availability of cheap labor is just one of many factors that make the “Made in China” label stick to many products purchased by consumers around the world.
Made in China means huge profitability for brands, whether it’s producing quick and cheap clothing or high-quality garments like Prada, Coach and Mulberry. With few exceptions, we’d rather pay less for our clothes, and moving production to China makes this possible.
China’s huge labor supply facilitates wholesale, meeting any seasonal industry demand, even sudden increases in demand. But China also has a highly skilled and highly specialized apparel industry, like the supply chain managers of mass-market apparel brands and even some high-end brands, who believe it offers the best combination of price, speed and quality.
The industry has become so specialized that entire cities in China can focus on producing certain types of clothing. China is one of the world’s largest suppliers of textiles and garments.
The Worldwide Value of Chinese Textiles
In 2019, China exported $ 151.6 billion worth of textiles and apparel, of which 70% came from apparel. China also accounts for 31.6% of the global market, where international fashion brands such as Nike and Gap rely on their imported products to supply. China is indeed the largest garment exporter in the world, or what we can call the “world’s garment factory,” with $ 288 billion in apparel exports in 2014. in export.
The industry began to grow in the early 20th century, until cotton yarn production accounted for about 20% of China’s total modern industrial production in that century. Since imports of Western manufactured goods ceased during World War I, the cotton industry in China and Japan developed rapidly to meet the needs of Asia.
During the industrial era, most of the textile production was moved overseas in search of cheap labor to produce the same quality. The Chinese textile industry was dominated by the Chinese only after the defeat of Japan in 1945, with the result that China became the owner of many well-equipped and efficient manufacturing plants.
Although the total capacity of Chinese factories in the 1930s was greater than that of Japanese, one third of the cotton yarn and half of the cotton products produced in China were produced in Japanese factories. Since then, workers’ wages have risen rapidly, leading to forecasts that Chinese textiles will no longer be competitive due to the loss of the advantage of low wages.
The General Productivity of Chinese Factories
Over the past 15 years, the volume of textile products leaving China has increased dramatically. China has been producing labor-intensive products and selling them to the rest of the world since the 1970s, and has increased its market share in the following decades. This is due to the fact that with the rapid growth of wages in China (pdf), some of the production has moved to low-cost countries such as Bangladesh.
There is no evidence that Chinese goods are of inferior quality than those made in the United States. In addition, not only is Chinese manufacturing a trend among cheaper brands, but high quality and “all-American” brands also have high rates of production in China.
So fast fashion in China means poor working conditions, unstable wages and overproduction. So fast fashion in China has not lifted workers out of poverty. perpetuate poverty. This is due to a change in China’s attitude towards cheap mass-produced clothing.
The Shift away from China
Fewer garments are imported from China this year than last year, as manufacturers travel to low-wage countries such as Vietnam, India and Bangladesh to produce more of their own clothing. Other Asian countries are increasingly importing clothing from China; for example, Bangladesh’s textile imports from China increased from 39% in 2005 to 47% in 2015 by value.
After China, the most popular clothing producing country is now Vietnam, which has grown steadily over the years as the number of imports has increased. An online factory that produces clothing. In fact, as of 2019, China remains the world’s largest source of fast fashion merchandise.
A rapidly growing middle class with its drive for cheap clothing keeps demand for “Made in China” fashion strong. China also has its own thriving luxury fashion industry, where Chinese designers create their exquisite creations in their own country.
China also has a rich history of garment manufacturing, with expertise in creating garments in a variety of styles and materials to meet the design requirements of organizations. There are about 44,000 textile and clothing companies in China.
Even Third World Countries USe Chinese LAbor
Here we also share a post about 10 clothing brands that are not made in China. As with Columbia, you also have other American fashion brands that manufacture most of their products in China, such as Vans, Calvin Klein, or New Balance.
Again, this does not affect the quality of the products as they all go through rigorous quality controls to ensure that the products comply with the guidelines before they are sold to the consumer.
Yes, most of Columbia’s clothing, footwear and accessories are made in China. After all, as you’ve read, it’s no surprise that the American brand manufactures a significant portion of its products in China. One of the reasons the trade war with China has had such a negative impact on American business is that it is now much more expensive for American companies to buy parts, components and raw materials from China.
As such, buying clothes in bulk from China is rarely (if ever) possible, unless you are willing to risk your items being confiscated by customs or subject to a forced recall. While there are many options for finding clothing items in China, it is very important to find the right ones.