The Year Ahead: Can New Production Models Help Fashion Overcome Supply Chain Woes?
The fashion industry operates on an outdated manufacturing system that is ripe for disruption. With many practices remaining unchanged for more than 50 years, fashion’s supply chains are neither responsive nor sustainable enough. With brands hunting for the lowest prices, manufacturing practices have become fragmented as brands outsource more and more of their production to sprawling networks of suppliers in developing countries. The number of factories has mushroomed, along with unauthorised subcontracting.
At the same time, logistics gridlocks and macroeconomic pressures continue to weigh on global supply. The war in Ukraine forced the re-routing of trade and triggered an energy crisis, while ageing port systems across the globe are creating transport bottlenecks. Global inflation has pushed up input costs — cotton and cashmere prices have increased 45 percent and 30 percent year on year in 2021 respectively — and extreme weather is hitting developing economies like Pakistan where, alongside the