Among shoppersin theWest,the notion persists(pdf) that”Made in China” indicates—to put it bluntly—junk. Many still prize labels boasting a product was made in, say, Italy—even if a growing number of Italian products come fromfactories that areChinese-owned and staffed.
But the quality of Chinese-made clothesis rising fast. China’s garment industry has been investingin manufacturing technology and training for decades now, andits workforce has collectively gotten better at stitching and assembling garmentsas Chinamakes a growing shareof the world’s clothes.
There are still dim, claustrophobic sweatshops—too many, sadly. But China is also home toa highlyskilled, highly specialized garment industry, onethatsupply chain managers of global mass-market clothingbrands, and even some high-end labels, regardas offeringthe best mix of price, speed, and—yes—quality.
“If I wasto make a basic men’s jean, I’d make that in Pakistan,”Edward Hertzman, co-owner of the trade publication Sourcing Journal, tells Quartz. “If I was going to make a fashion woman’s garment, I would move to China because their skill set is better, their hand is better, their finishing is better, and they can handle that type of fashion.”
The industry has become so specialized that entire cities in China maycenter on manufacturingparticular types of clothing. In her book Overdressed, author Elizabeth Cline marvels at the existence of a city near Shanghai that makes most of the world’s socks—about 9 billion pairs a year—and another inZhejiang Province with around 5,000 factories all making children’s clothing. “There’s also a Sweater City and an Underwear City,” she writes, “where huge volumes of each are churned out in highly concentrated areas.”
That intense focus allows factories to become extremely proficient.
Indeed, luxury fashion labels now routinely make thingsin China. Burberry, Armani, and Prada have all manufactured there, because it’s cheap but also because they’re still able to get good workmanship for the price.Even the Japanese brand Visvim, known for its fanatical attention to detail, produceshigh-end, handmade footwear there.
Miuccia Prada makes about 20% of Prada’s collections there. And, she told the Wall Street Journal,”Sooner or later, it will happen to everyone because [Chinese manufacturing] is so good.”
China also has its own burgeoning, home-grown luxury fashion industry, featuring Chinese designers who make their elaborate creations in their home country.
The oft-repeated analogy forChina’s manufacturing progress is Japan’s evolution. Now regarded as a paragon of precision and efficiency, it too once had a reputation for shoddy exports. Toyota and its method of “lean manufacturing” helped the countryrehabilitate that image, and in fact some Chinese garment manufacturers have followedToyota’s lead specifically. (It’s a particularly apt comparison because Toyotaoriginally made fabriclooms, not cars.)
ForRoger Lee, CEO of Hong Kong’s TAL Group, “lean manufacturing” is essential to his operations. The giant shirtmaker, which says it producesone of every six dress shirts in the US, operates 10factories, including two in China. “Before, if you started production of a shirt, it would take you about two weeks to get it out,” Leesays. “Today, if you put one shirt in, you get it out in two to four hours.”
TAL Group, which calls itself an “innofacturer,”hasbecome knownfor its data-driven efficiency. But Lee tells Quartz that his company is not alone: China’s garment industryhasworked to improve quality and speed to stay competitive. That’s because as wages rise rapidly in China(pdf), some production has shifted todeadly-cheap countries such as Bangladesh.”Where labor is still relatively cheap, it’s not as important to be efficient in that way,” he says. But “in China, we definitely have to be a lot more efficient if we’re going to survive.”
A”Made in China” label doesn’t guarantee a good product, of course. It’s a large country that’s still developing, meaning some industrial areasare more advanced than others. Hertzman tells Quartz that determining an item’s qualitycan only accurately happen on “a factory-to-factory, product-to-product basis.” Still,generally speaking, he says, “sourcing executives have a higher expectation of the fashion and the value-added products coming out of China than other countries.”
The proof, according to Josh Green, CEO of Panjiva, a site thatconnects sourcing professionals with suppliers, is that despite the rising wages and costs of doing business in China, companies have not walked away.”[China is]viewed by people who make buying decisions as unique and hard to replicate elsewhere,” he says. “If anything, China has developed such advanced capabilities, it’s making it hard for other countries to compete.”
