Apparel Industry

Companies across sectors are increasingly shifting manufacturing away from China in an effort to reduce vulnerability and exposure to rising labor costs. Research from Moody’s finds that large global apparel companies may fare the best when diversifying.

The Seattle e-commerce juggernaut just won a patent for “on-demand apparel manufacturing,” in which machines only start snipping and stitching once an order has been placed, Amazon could wade deeper into developing its own apparel.

Our findings indicate that creating a win-win of raising productivity and competitiveness, as well as social and environmental performance is possible. But an ambitious, systemic approach is needed to achieve industry transformation.