"Do you know the story of the shoemaker who was making shoes that never wore out? He closed shop after putting on all the villagers. We're not in the business of selling one shirt per customer. I want them to come back, again and again, and we will not get there with shirts that last five years."
We had been locked in this meeting room for over an hour, on the third floor of a beautiful building close to the Boulevard Hausseman. Slumped into his seat, the development manager of a major brand of ready-to-wear clothing looked impassive and confident. The only thing that mattered to him, to his end-of-the-year bonus, was to renegotiate our contract downwards, to "scratch off" another sixty cents per item. Sixty cents multiplied by two hundred thousand shirts a year, was a big gesture for us. We'd caved in last year already, despite everything else going up. If we yielded this year, again, we would no longer be able to produce them in the same factories.
"I don’t care, make them wherever you want, it's not my problem."
I knew all too well what it meant. Work for nothing, or turn to run-down stalls in India or Bengladesh, without emergency exits or fire extinguishers. If ever the roof collapsed, as in had happened back in 2013 in Savar Upazila, and half of the employees died under the rubble, it was all on us.
Take it or leave it. Keep an major client, or give it to any of our many competitors. Work for close to nothing, or don’t work at all.
"We will send you the revised contract", I said, getting up from my chair to collect the sheets of my presentation, scattered all over the meeting table.
I had to concede. I didn’t have any choice. In the long chain of genesis of every garment you wear, starting from the cotton plantations in India, through weaving factories, sewing stalls, packaging centers, quality control rooms, containers loaded on liners three hundred meters long, and the logistics warehouses in Europe, it was the big brand owners who dictated their ruels to everyone down below. They were the ones to collect the money, bit by bit from millions of end customers all accross Europe. They had the power of life and death over the rest of the clothing industry.
For quite a while, the brands had been benevolent with their suppliers. Their main concern was the quality of the clothes we made for them. The labels were owned by their historical founders, who were passionate about clothing, and who made it a point of honor to please their customers. It was personal for them, a family business.
And then it all changed about ten years ago, with the advent of fast fashion.
Armancio Ortega was the manager of a small clothing store in A Coruña, in Spain, in the 1970s. He had initially named his store "Zorba", in honor of the movie "Zorba the Greek", but after having learned that a bar, two blocks away, already had the same name, unwilling to spend one more dime on a new storefront, he rearranged the letters to spell "Zara". His idea was simple: make cheap copies of designer clothes. And it worked. Other "Zara" storefronts began to pop up all over Spain.
In 1988, M Ortega opened his first overseas outlet, in Portugal. In 1989, he began the conquest of a new continent, opening his first store in the United States. France discovered his brand the next year, in 1990.
It was really in the early 2000s that the world became aware of the new phenomenon. Consumers were fascinated by prices two to three times lower for clothes that, at least in appearance, were identical to the ones that they used to buy at the time.
Of course, the prices that M Ortega offered to his clients were no miracle. They were obtained at the price of the ultimate sacrifice, that of quality. The clothes would lose their shape, the seams would fall apart, loose threads hanging from around buttons, but the customers couldn't see any of that, blinded by the shining numbers printed on the labels.
The irony is that because of Mr Ortega's revolution, despite lower prices at the cash desk, the monthly amount spent by an average consumer on clothing has increased. It was all simple math: when you buy a sweater at half the price, but it falls apart four times faster, you end up spending twice as much on sweaters, in the long run.
This new trend was quick to attract the interest of finance types. The garment industry was booming, consumers were spending more and more on sweaters, shirts, pants and jackets, they had to get in to the new market trend!
And so, starting the beginning of the 2000s, investment funds gradually bought up most of the historic clothing brands, and became the new owners of a spider's web of stores, distribution networks, marketing and production centers. All this in an industry they knew absolutely nothing about.
And the finance types started to reign over their new kingdom using the only language they knew: money.
A brand is in decline? We must increase advertising expenses!
Revenue is down? We must increase prices!
Profits are down? Let's renegotiate contracts with our suppliers, and trim down our salesforce!
Of course, you can't possibly expect a shirt produced for half the price to stay the same. The suppliers of clothing brands, the manufacturers who actually make the clothes you see in stores, had to adapt. Outsource first, producing in countries with ever lower labor costs, first in Eastern Europe, then in Asia. Lower the quality, too, using cheaper fabric, and reduced production times. Say hello to plastic buttons, goodbye to reinforced seams.
This is how all your childhood brands have gradually lost their splendor, how the leather jacket you dreamed of wearing as a teenager, is today only a pale reflection of how you used to remember it, all shining on its majestic stall.
To be continued...
This post is taken from our series "How Clothes Are Made: Stories From Behind the Curtain". Albeit fictional, it's inspired from the writer's own experience as an insider in the clothing industry.