Labels
2013
In the United States, we are so concerned by products made in high-tech Chinese factories, and we worry that American jobs are lost overseas. Little do we consider that fashion must innovate in order to keep immigrants interested in garment jobs even in Manhattan, that it is not American born workers who are paid to sew our brand name jeans or Che t-shirts. We hardly imagine the factory women humming in another language as they sit at their cutting machine, perhaps invoking the American Dream as reported in The New Yorker, "All these Chinese people working here...(need) an opportunity to have a better life." (The Garmento King, by Rebecca Mead, September 23, 2013)
Flip over your label, and you will likely see Made in Vietnam on your purple H&M tank, or on the sneakers hugging your toes.
The garment industry is big business here, making the country the second largest exporter of textiles and apparel to the United States, with fabric and materials supplied from China, South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere. (Vinatex, Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group, November 2012) According to Vietnamese governmental records, the garment industry will continue to grow due to low wage workforce, earning $150-200 per month, and an expanding consumer base wherein 70% of the population purchase clothing 2-3 times a month. |
Clearly, the textile industry is growing at a rapid pace as long as first world consumers demand for fast fashion grows, regardless of the periodic outcry over fair labor practices in Asia.888
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According to the IDE-JETRO report, the garment industry offers developing nations a first tier industry in which to grow their economies, with Vietnam growing more than China and just behind Bangladesh in the textile and apparel industry. "In fact, many East Asian economies achieved industrial development and became high-income countries through this entry point" of low-wage apparel production ( Fukunishi, Goto & Yamagata). Your fast fashion desires may offer a woman means to fill her child's stomach and to earn more than the $1 a day she would have had if the apparel factory hadn't moved to her countryside hometown. Consider the countries in 1970 from the UN report. How many of those would you consider today still a third world nation? OK, I will go ahead and state the obvious. Basically, the Philippines and Mexico are two countries whose economies have not grown comparatively as well in the global market if apparel exports can be used as indicators.
So economic growth and, thus, poverty alleviation are the benefits of a burgeoning apparel industry.
What are some of the challenges?
Businesses point to different problems than developing governments, "Results from the monitoring exercise highlight that there is discordance between the public and private sector with respect to priority areas for support. The private sector emphasizes border governance issues and access to finance, while national governments, in contrast, place much greater emphasis on resolving infrastructure issues."
It is true, finding someone willing to whine about the road quality in Vietnam is as easy as seeing an Apple or Nike logo on a motorbike helmet whizzing by you on the same road. This clearly demonstrates infrastructure can be an issue. While I cannot explain why the economic capital is so far from a sea port, which offers another point to the infrastructure policy wonks out there, this country also demonstrates an interesting dynamic between what is made here for export, and what is made here for local consumption.
What are some of the challenges?
Businesses point to different problems than developing governments, "Results from the monitoring exercise highlight that there is discordance between the public and private sector with respect to priority areas for support. The private sector emphasizes border governance issues and access to finance, while national governments, in contrast, place much greater emphasis on resolving infrastructure issues."
It is true, finding someone willing to whine about the road quality in Vietnam is as easy as seeing an Apple or Nike logo on a motorbike helmet whizzing by you on the same road. This clearly demonstrates infrastructure can be an issue. While I cannot explain why the economic capital is so far from a sea port, which offers another point to the infrastructure policy wonks out there, this country also demonstrates an interesting dynamic between what is made here for export, and what is made here for local consumption.
At 31-33-35 Chau Van Liem, District 5, you will not find a building buzzing with manufacturing lines. In fact, you will find a place as common as ever in the streets of Ho Chi Minh City: A market.
You will find the place with all the makings, notions, do dads, and bling rings to turn your drab clutch into a fashion forward accouterment worthy of the runways in Paris, Milan, or London. As well, you will find all the labels to prove you only purchase garments worthy to be draped around the cosmopolitan diva you are.
This notions market should be a huge warning to all you tourists at Ben Thanh blaring as loudly as the peddler on his bicycle playing a recording for bean curd cake at 5 am. Buyers and sellers rush up and down the aisles with cases of labels, ribbons, fabric, and buttons, moving merchandise for knock-off production to be whisked away in pulse of motorbike traffic on either end of its many entryways.
Yes, everyone can be a boutique designer here. It is as easy as doing a Google image search in the cramped tailor's shop, with falsies, bolts, and strings spilling from plastic bags stacked floor to ceiling. And if it is a special day, a baby is perched in the middle of the floor, sitting like a garment Buddha blessing your choice of darting and hem line.
Yes, everyone can be a boutique designer here. It is as easy as doing a Google image search in the cramped tailor's shop, with falsies, bolts, and strings spilling from plastic bags stacked floor to ceiling. And if it is a special day, a baby is perched in the middle of the floor, sitting like a garment Buddha blessing your choice of darting and hem line.
Neither private or public sectors put much premium on intellectual property in the apparel industry. Nor can a person earning less than $2,400 per year even consider buying a pair of Calvin Klein jeans, much less Calvin Klein underwear, especially when you can get the knock offs of the latter for $1.50 or less in the local market. (The waist band ribbon for Calvin Klein underwear, by the way, rests on the floor of some stalls in huge spools like old movie reels.)
Labels are big business here. They tell a story of economies in the making, of factory women humming over patterns, of the tailor on the corner with the old Singer, and of garment workers worldwide stitching together dreams, transforming some poor nations into great ones.
In all industries, regardless of geography, there are people who need for "an opportunity for a better life."
Labels are big business here. They tell a story of economies in the making, of factory women humming over patterns, of the tailor on the corner with the old Singer, and of garment workers worldwide stitching together dreams, transforming some poor nations into great ones.
In all industries, regardless of geography, there are people who need for "an opportunity for a better life."