'Luxe' Manufacturing and Production in China

[Jungla_Juana]

Bottega Veneta produces in Vicenza, Italy. I have been there, they have a little outlet. The factory is actually not that big.

 

[seahorseinstripe]

i'm kinda late on this thread but i just wanna express my opinion.
i always feel it's weird when people make a fuss when a designer make their products in china and by saying that it's child labour, support terrorism thing. honestly, is there really a prove about china factories support terrorism? and about child labour, honestly people have to know what it's like in there.
i don't live in china but i live in 3rd world country, and children are walking around in the street at nights begging for money in lamp light crossing by knocking car's windows, and when people don't give em money, sometime they say bad things to the people in the car like "stingy" or other rude things. i really do think it's better if these children who have to look for money anyway have a real job to do.
i never approve of begging, i think everyone should earn their money or at least trying, and would it be better if they have a factory where they can work and to pay their school or support their family?
not all governments are as supporting unemployment like america or europe, in some countries it's people for the people.

what i don't like is when designers make their products in china and only stitch the label in italy or france to make it right to say "made in italy" or "made in france"
why don't they just say it?

 

[chloehandbags]

^ From what I've seen on documentaries, many child workers are seriously injured by the machinery, though, seahorse (many lose limbs, for example); especially as the factory owners often remove the guards to speed up the pace of manufacture and the hours are so long that the children eventually lose concentration.

Whether that is better, or worse, than begging (where I appreciate that they may be abducted and physically and/or sexually abused and/or mutilated to make them more efficient beggars) I don't know(?) but, either way, I don't want to feel that I am paying (especially well over the odds!) for goods that may well have been produced in that way.

I'd have thought that, even in this economy (and unlike the lower end of the highstreet), top R-T-W design houses are still in the enviable position of being able to easily afford to pay for decent working conditions (whether in Europe, or elsewhere). So, for many of them to still choose not to, just to make themselves even more money and then (as if that isn't enough!) to often, also, go on to lie about place of manufacture on the label, is just completely unacceptable, IMO.

Talk about adding insult to injury!

 

[thejarc]

Let's take Christopher Kane. His t-shirts and t-shirt-dresses are being made in china. The thing that botheres me is that he still requires a HELL lot of money for them. They're made out of cotton. h&m sells these kind of t-shirts for 10€. I got one of them as a present. They are really not that great.

I also hate when italian labels psotion themselves as the most traditional house ever and produce their stuff somewhere in middle-asia.

 

[Meg]

It's funny from reading this thread that it seems Cavalli has some of the best production practices and yet so much of what he makes comes across as (and looks) cheap. There is no reason to assume immediately that Chinese factories produce inferior goods. They don't. Anything made in a production line in a factory probably will not be as high of quality as that produced by an artisan doing something they have done for 20 years by hand. But I would imagine that in terms of quality of production, factories in Vietnam, China, India, America, etc. produce roughly comparable goods. They have to - the industry is competitive. If someone can produce the good you want at the quality you want at a lower price just down the road - it's easy to shift production. I think the difference comes in terms of what employees are paid, how well they are treated, etc.

As for the terrorism thing, I too often think the links are tenuous. However, I did see an article recently in either the Guardian or Globe & Mail (both highly respected newspapers) about how knock-offs of Christian Louboutin shoes were directly related to terrorism. Basically, those in terrorist groups went into knock-offs because of the high profit margins and they would kidnap and force children to work to produce them - and the quality was very high (they even replicated the CL boxes). In fact, Louboutin and his team are actively working to shut these operations down (of course for their own profit reasons as well).

I just bought an Alexander Wang 'rocco' bag and all his bags are produced in China. The price is less than other designer bags and I feel more comfortable that they are being upfront about it. As others have noted, the "made in..." label is much more complex than it used to be. Being produced in Italy or France is not a guarantee of quality. Quite frankly, if my TV can be made and produced in China and I willing to spend over a grand on that, what makes me think that they also can't produce bags and clothing to high standards?

 

[seahorseinstripe]

i heard from a source inside fashion industry about how designers like wang can sell their leather bags cheaper than most designer. beside the obvious mark up it is, but wang and some other designer like phillip lim are using the best leather quality and the best hardware like other designers. but the leathers they are using are more "raw", that's why the leather smell is stronger (which is an advantage imo, i love leather smell). those leathers are cheaper and that's why they can sell em cheaper too beside the obvious that producing in china is a lot more cheaper

 

[ErnstLudwig]

the terrorism argument is

I believe if they would want to, the 3rd world production facilities could achieve the quality of the ones of western counties (and “normal” products of designer brands, not Kiton suits or Loro Piana fabrics). It's not that they lack the proper machines or trained workers, the companies simply want to tweak their profit margin even more…

What bothers me if I buy stuff from there, they have = 0 environment protection and even if no child labour is involved, 60h of work a week without proper breaks, food or health care system.

 

[Donatello89]

well there are maybe stigma with "made in china", but truely, who would spend money to make clothes travel all over the world if it's not interesting ?? clearly, china's living and working conditions are still uneblievalbe, and it's still really interesting for big brand to produce their clothes there. Even if maybe they pay more attention to get quality clothes, it's still unbearable for me to wanna be called a luxury brand, and not choose to produce very expensive clothes in the original country. BCBG, Rykiel and Hugo Boss are mostly made in China. I'd like to say : what a shame !!