Tag Archives: Apparel

Organic Cotton certification fraud

An article in the New York Times ( February 13, 2022) titled “That Organic Cotton T-Shirt May Not Be as Organic as You Think”, describes the certification challenges for organic cotton in India. Despite commanding $ 25 to $ 46 … Continue reading

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Amazon’s The Drop and associated supply chains

Amazon’s website “The Drop” describes its process as consisting of collections that are available for 30 hours, are designed by influencers and inspired by street trends. Their limited availability reflects supply constraints based on fabric availability. But the limited availability … Continue reading

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“The Zara Gap” article

In an article in the “Sourcing Journal” (April 24 2015) John Thorbeck describes research with Warren Hausman on the persistent gap in the performance between Zara and other apparel retailers. Their results suggest a profit increase of 28% through adoption … Continue reading

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Nike’s water footprint across the supply chain and reduction efforts

Nike’s Materials Sustainability Index discussion (http://www.nikeresponsibility.com/report/content/chapter/water) focuses on the 217 billion gallons of water consumed across its supply chain, with 7% generated by raw material production and cotton accounting for 87% of that use. A focus on reducing the absolute … Continue reading

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Should the US government track the working conditions at its apparel suppliers ?

An article in the New York Times titled “Buying Overseas Clothing, US Flouts its own advice” (December 22, 2013) describes the $1.5 billion in clothing purchased by the US government and working conditions at its suppliers. Contracts for clothing for … Continue reading

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Apparel factory fire in Prato, Italy

An article in the New York Times titled “Deadly Factory Fire Bares Racial Tensions in Italy” (December 8, 2013), describes a fire at an apparel factory in Prato that killed seven Chinese employees. The factory had windows that were blocked … Continue reading

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Retail Analytics to mitigate fashion risk

An article in the Wall Street Journal, on September 8, 2013, titled “Fashion Industry Meets Big Data” (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323595004579062793245498838.html?mod=itp&cb=logged0.7893976105842739) describes the increasing use of analytics in the fashion industry to forecast trends. These forecasts provide estimates of demand by color, fabric … Continue reading

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Does fast fashion enhance poor garment manufacturer working conditions in Bangladesh ?

An article in the New Yorker by James Surowicki (May 20,2013) quotes MIT political scientist Richard Locke as suggesting that fast fashion, with short cycle times, high variety and demands for quick turnaround, force garment manufacturers to demand poor working … Continue reading

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The US alliance vs the European accord’s plans for Bangladesh garment factories

An article in the New York Times (July 14,2013) describes plans by an alliance of the US retailers to offer shared inspection reports of over 500 factories in Bangladesh, loans from a pool of $100 million to factory owners to … Continue reading

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Competition and monitoring challenges of apparel manufacturing in Cambodia

An article in the Wall Street Journal (July 6, 2013) describes the evolution of the role of “Better Factories Cambodia” and its monitoring of working conditions in Cambodia’s apparel factories. Though initially focused on public release of its reports, the … Continue reading

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