Secondhand by Adam Minter

Author:Adam Minter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

On December 10, 1974, the New York Times published a curious article under the headline DECLINING QUALITY IN CLOTHES: THE MAKERS AND SELLERS TELL WHY. The author, Enid Nemy, opened by noting a now-forgotten mid-1970s grievance:

An increasing number of consumers are complaining about a deterioration in quality—food doesn’t taste the same, automobiles don’t last as long, appliances collapse, the list is endless.

The fashion industry is no exception.

At the time, the United States was the source of most goods consumed by Americans. Hong Kong, then under the jurisdiction of the United Kingdom, made and exported some garments (including, reportedly, garments smuggled from China). But the overall total was too small to impact U.S. manufacturers and consumers. The notion that China, still bogged down by the violent Cultural Revolution, might one day disrupt the global economic order was preposterous.

Nemy didn’t point fingers at others for what she characterized as a plague of “poor fit, inferior fabrics and shoddy workmanship.” Instead, she provided room for four American apparel manufacturing and retailing veterans to explain it. Their conclusion, as summarized by Nemy, was that “quality generally has been declining since World War [II] and that what had been expediency at the time had now become a way of life.”

She reported several factors accounting for the decades-long descent: a lack of product inspectors, “a dwindling supply of skilled labor,” a shift to piecework (making collars only, for example, while another factory makes cuffs) rather than whole-garment manufacturing, and—most notably—the relentless march of fashion. Paul Heller, then president of the Carr Buying Office, a company that purchased goods on behalf of hundreds of shops and department stores around the United States, spoke of the latter in terms that will be familiar to contemporary critics of fast fashion:

HELLER: There’s no question that our poorest quality comes from the hot fashions fad manufacturer. No doubt about it. And yet there is, particularly in young junior areas, an enormous consumer demand for this type of fashion.

Are you saying that a good deal of the fault is due to consumer acceptance of poor quality?

HELLER: No question. She is the final arbiter. And for every garment that is returned there may be 10 others that should have been returned but the customer manages to live with it because she wants that look on her back. She loves the dress.

The global dominance of China’s textile manufacturers didn’t happen for another fifteen years. Arguably, fast fashion wouldn’t happen for another twenty. But viewed from 1974, it’s difficult to argue that China’s “cheap” clothing is a recent phenomenon. Rather, it’s an evolution in customer tolerance that began with the industrial revolution. Thanks to technology, improved logistics, and entrepreneurial know-how, China—and East Asian manufacturing in general—has managed to do it better than anybody else.

Will Africa’s consumers be the first to turn against the deteriorating quality of clothing? Probably not. Chinese textile exports to Africa have been growing for decades, and several African countries, including Rwanda and Ethiopia, are eager hosts to Chinese apparel manufacturers. Secondhand

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