To avoid raising prices, clothing brands cut back on quality
To avoid raising prices, clothing brands cut back on quality
It’s a Friday morning during the holiday shopping season at Macy’s in Manhattan. The Christmas songs are playing on a loop, the wreaths are up and the place is packed with tourists.
But Phyllis Sevachko isn’t here for festivities. She’s here to take stock of the quality of clothing on the racks. She grabs a red holiday sweater bedazzled with silver stones for $99 and inspects the stitching. The stones are all attached by a single strand of thread.
“And that is cheaper,” said Sevachko, a production manager at Stateless Fashion & Design Consulting, “Because can you imagine one person tying off a hundred pieces individually?”
That would take more time and, of course, money. It’s a shortcut a shopper might not notice — until one of the stones snags and all of them fall off.
Inflation isn’t as big of a problem as it was a year or two ago. But it’s still top of mind for many business owners, including clothing manufacturers. Textile and apparel imports have risen more than 50% since the start of 2020. Meanwhile for consumers, the cost of apparel has risen just 7%.
One strategy companies have used to close that gap is to decrease the quality of garments. There are some tried and true methods. For instance, instead of taking the time to sew in zippers and buttons, they’ll might use elastic waistbands. And instead of sourcing pricey natural fabrics like wool, they use synthetics like acrylic.
But many other tactics are less obvious. Shrinkflation, often thought of as cereal companies and soap makers putting less product in the container, is a common practice in clothing manufacturing, too.
“So that size six that you used to wear might fit a little snugger because the specs might be a little bit smaller,” said Sevachko.
Saving on a few millimeters of material might sound insignificant, but multiply that by thousands of shirts and companies save a lot. Sometimes, cost cutting even influences fashion trends.
“Cropped sweaters!” said Sevachko. “It’s a sweater, but it’s cropped now, so you’ve saved all that yarn.”
Some brands use these cost cutting measures more than others. People who buy expensive clothes aren’t usually as sensitive to price increases, which makes it easier for luxury brands to raise prices. Then, there are fast fashion brands that are lower priced and sold in mass market stores
“There are already pretty slim margins on those products, so there’s not a lot of room for brands and retailers to absorb increased costs,” said Margaret Bishop, a professor at Parsons School of Design and the Fashion Institute of Technology.
It’s why lower priced brands are more likely to decrease quality, a shift that’s been happening for some time now.
“It’s sort of a slow decline,” said Bishop. “But if you look at the fiber content of clothing labels and you’ve been doing that over time, you may notice some differences.”
Jennifer Wang has taken notice. The TikTok creator with nearly 400,000 followers is known for going into stores and highlighting apparel that’s well or poorly made. Wang started making these videos because she was tired of buying sweaters that fall apart.
“You wash it once according to the wash instructions on the label, and it creates little balls on the surface, pills up and of course, that leads to disappointment,” she said.
Wang does have some sympathy for brands. She’s learned it’s not easy to balance quality and cost because she’s currently designing her own clothing line using natural fabrics.
“I think that opened my eyes to a lot of nuances of fabric compositions,” said Wang. “What I thought was possible before, now I know isn’t.”
Back at Macy’s, Sevachko has some tips for finding quality clothes. She picks up a cream colored skirt that’s fully lined and has thick, wavy lace for $60. She expected the price to be more like $80, given the quality.
“First of all, it’s got all this, this rounded seam,” she said, pointing to the scalloped edges. “This is more costly because it’s faster to go in a straight line. The fact that you’ve got gathering, that’s expensive because you’ve got excess fabric. Clean finish, that’s money.”
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