When most think of American ingenuity and production, they think of Baltimore's car industry. When they think of fashion, they think of New York. The irony of the latter is that while New York is where many fashion brands design, it is not where they produce. Instead, New York serves as an outsourcing capital for brands to design their samples before sending them off to be produced elsewhere.
Los Angeles on the other hand typically has fashion brands that design and manufacture domestically, such as American Apparel. The distinction is of particular importance, as American consumers are growing wise to the repercussions of outsourcing.
Photo: Gio Ferrigno
"Beyond the ethical issues of exploiting underdeveloped territories like Bangladesh, where apparel manufacturing wages can be as low as $70 per month, impoverished labor outsourcing has created a one-way export of the US dollar from the US economy," states the Executive Producer of Fashion Week in Los Angeles, Gio Ferrigno.
While most major brands proclaim that US labor costs make domestic apparel production prohibitive, Angelenos are widely known to have a penchant for locally produced goods and realize the advantages of keeping money in the local ecosystem.
The parent company of FWLA has implemented subsidies to help reduce the cost of participation for designers that produce apparel in the US.
"We want the industry's workforce to contribute to the overall eco-system of our local economy," says Ferrigno.
This influx has led to tax dollars being used to renovate Downtown LA driving tourism all the way to the location to produce even more funds and consequent opportunities. This, in turn, has led to increased real estate prices that exponentially dwarf the costs of buying locale. By utilizing local production and forming "home grown" consumer habits, they have increased the value of their Los Angles' real estate by hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The extra benefit of increased wage compensation is applied due to the increased living cost. "Workers in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale Metropolitan Division had an average (mean) hourly wage of $25.48 in May 2014, about 12 percent above the nationwide average of $22.71," according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.