We produce locally for many reasons, but the biggest obstacle is that it is costly, and that's why our pieces are more expensive. We pay 4-5 times more for local production compared to overseas.
Let's look at why we choose local production and pay more instead of overseas.
Control
The companies don't have the same access to the factories as someone producing locally would have. Producing overseas has a big benefit for the companies that do. Their cost is much less than ours and therefore they can offer better pricing but they don't have the same overview as we do. They can't go to the factory every time they have a production run and talk with the sewings if need be. They can't follow the process as we do. They can't control outsourcing to smaller companies that don't follow fair labor standards, child workers, and so on.
Shipping
Producing local reduces our CO2 outlet to an absolute minimum as we do not have to get our products shipped over a large distance. We make our samples in-house, and only the final sample is made at the factory so we don't have to ship the samples back and forth 8-10 times before approving the design but even if we did we our CO2 would be 1/10 of brands that produce overseas. Now imagine a company that does produce overseas and then follow the sample across the world 8-10 times plus the production has to be shipped as well.
Fair labor
The workers are paid a fair wage, the working conditions are good, no child labor. We get our collections sewn locally to make sure that the conditions and fair wages are in place. The majority of companies get their collections produced overseas to save cost this method limits their visibility as many overseas companies subcontract to smaller companies that don't live up to the standards.
Reuse
We are a zero-waste company which means that most of our styles are already optimized to use 95% of the fabric. We do have a few styles in regular patterns, which does waste about 20% when created. For us to use our fabric scraps producing local is preferred because we ask the factory to send us our cutting scraps so that we can reuse the scraps or donate them. This setup would be too costly if we produced overseas. The shipping cost & CO2 associated with it would outway the sustainable factor of reuse. Any brand that's not working with zero waste concepts waste approx. 25-30% for each style they produce. The majority of companies do not reuse but throw that waste into the landfills, so keep that in mind the next time you shop.
Our square dress is created from 2 rectangles which use 98% of the fabric. The ties are leftover scraps from our Cardigan, and the fabric is made from organic cotton. The dress is manufactured at our factory in Bronx, New York. The dress is packed & shipped in biodegradable bags.
