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Amazon Sought Tariff Loophole Used by Chinese Rivals. Now Biden Is Closing It.

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Under pressure from Chinese competitors, Amazon, Walmart and other U.S. retailers have been exploring ways to avoid tariffs. Could a new Biden administration rule change that?Major American retailers including Amazon and Walmart have been quietly exploring shifting toward a business model that would ship more goods directly to consumers from Chinese factories and require fewer U.S. workers in retail stores and logistics centers.The plans have been driven by the rocketing popularity of Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein and Temu, which have won over consumers with their low prices. These platforms ship inexpensive products directly to consumers’ doorsteps, allowing them to bypass American tariffs on Chinese goods, along with the hefty costs associated with brick-and-mortar stores, warehousing and distribution networks.Rising competition from Shein, Temu and other Chinese companies is pushing many major U.S. retailers to consider shifting to a similar model to qualify for an obscure, century-old U.S. trade law, according to several people familiar with the plans. The law, known as de minimis, allows importers to bypass U.S. taxes and tariffs on goods as long as shipments do not exceed $800 in value.But that trend toward changing business models may have been disrupted on Friday, when the Biden administration abruptly moved to close off de minimis eligibility for many Chinese imports, including most clothing items. In an announcement Friday morning, the Biden administration said it would clamp down on the number of packages that come into the country duty-free using de minimis shipping, particularly from China.The Biden administration’s changes will not go into effect immediately. The proposal will be subject to comment by industry before being finalized in the coming months, and some imports from China would still qualify for a de minimis exemption.But Friday’s action may head off a change that has been looming in global retail. Amazon has been preparing a new discount service that would ship products directly to consumers, allowing those goods to bypass tariffs, according to people familiar with the plans. Even companies that preferred to keep their business models as-is — like Walmart — have been forced to consider using more de minimis to compete.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Where Textile Mills Thrived, Remnants Battle for Survival

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    In his 40-year career, William Lucas has seen nearly every step in the erosion of the American garment industry. As general manager of Eagle Sportswear, a company in Middlesex, N.C., that cuts, sews and assembles apparel, he hopes to keep what’s left of that industry intact.Mr. Lucas, 59, has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars training his workers to use more efficient techniques that come with financial bonuses to get employees to work faster.But he fears that his investments may be undermined by a U.S. trade rule.William Lucas has invested hundreds of thousands of dollars training his workers at Eagle Sportswear to use more efficient techniques.The rule, known as de minimis, allows foreign companies to ship goods worth less than $800 directly to U.S. customers while avoiding tariffs. Mr. Lucas and other textile makers in the Carolinas, once a textile hub, contend that the provision — nearly a century old, but exploding in use — motivates retailers to rely even more on foreign producers to keep prices low.Defenders of the rule say it is not to blame for a lack of U.S. competitiveness. But domestic manufacturers say it benefits China in particular at the expense of American manufacturers and workers.Irma Salazar working on an order of shorts at Eagle Sportswear. The company pays bonuses for meeting production goals.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    Canada Goose workers vote to unionize in Winnipeg.

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    Workers at three plants owned by the luxury apparel-maker Canada Goose in Winnipeg, Manitoba, have voted overwhelmingly to unionize, according to results announced by the union on Wednesday.Workers United, an affiliate of the giant Service Employees International Union, said it would represent about 1,200 additional workers as a result of the election.Canada Goose, which makes parkas that can cost more than $1,000 and have been worn by celebrities like Daniel Craig and Kate Upton, has union workers at other facilities, including some in Toronto, and has frequently cited its commitment to high environmental and labor standards. But it had long appeared to resist efforts to unionize workers in Winnipeg, part of what the union called an “adversarial relationship.”The company denied that it sought to block unionization, and both sides agree that it was neutral in recent weeks, in the run-up to the election. The union said 86 percent of those voting backed unionization.“I want to congratulate the workers of Canada Goose for this amazing victory,” Richard A. Minter, a vice president and international organizing director for Workers United, said in a statement. “I also want to salute the company. No employer wants a union, but Canada Goose management stayed neutral and allowed the workers the right to exercise their democratic vote.”Reacting to the vote, the company said: “Our goal has always been to support our employees, respecting their right to determine their own representation. We welcome Workers United as the union representative for our employees across our manufacturing facilities in Winnipeg.”Canada Goose was founded under a different name in the 1950s. It began to raise its profile and emphasize international sales after Dani Reiss, the grandson of its founder, took over as chief executive in 2001. Mr. Reiss committed to keeping production of parkas in Canada.The private equity firm Bain Capital purchased a majority stake in the company in 2013 and took it public a few years later.The union vote came after accusations this year that Canada Goose had disciplined two workers who identified themselves as union supporters. Several workers at Canada Goose’s Winnipeg facilities, where the company’s work force is mostly immigrants, also complained of low pay and abusive behavior by managers.The company has denied the accusations of retaliation and abuse and said that well over half its workers in Winnipeg earned wages above the local minimum of about 12 Canadian dollars (about $9.35).Workers United is also seeking to organize workers at several Buffalo-area Starbucks stores, three of which are in the middle of a mail-in union election in which ballots are due next week.Nearly 30 percent of workers are unionized in Canada, compared with about 11 percent in the United States. More

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    Retailers’ Latest Headache: Shutdowns at Their Vietnamese Suppliers

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    Factories in the country, a major apparel and footwear supplier to the U.S., have been forced by the pandemic to close or operate at reduced capacity, complicating the all-important holiday season.After a bruising 18 months of the pandemic, this fall represented a fresh start for the apparel company Everlane. It was preparing to release a slew of new products, with September marking the beginning of an ambitious marketing campaign around its denim.Instead, Everlane has spent this month scrambling just to get jeans — along with other products like bags and shoes — out of Vietnam, where a surge in coronavirus cases has forced factories to either close or operate at severely reduced capacity with staff living in on-site bubbles.“At this point, we have factories in 100 percent lockdown,” Michael Preysman, Everlane’s chief executive, said in an interview. “Do we fly things over? Do we move things? Do we adjust in the factory? It’s a nonstop game of Tetris.”The crisis in Vietnam, which has grown in recent years to become the second-biggest supplier of apparel and footwear to the United States after China, is the latest curveball to be tossed at the retail industry, which has been battered by the pandemic. Vietnam made it through the first part of the pandemic relatively unscathed, but now the Delta variant of the coronavirus is on a rampage, highlighting the uneven distribution of vaccines globally and the perils that new outbreaks pose to the world’s economy.With the holiday season fast approaching, many American retailers are anticipating delays and shortages of goods, along with higher prices tied to labor and already skyrocketing shipping costs. Everlane said it was facing delays of four to eight weeks, depending on when factories it worked with in Vietnam had closed. Nike cut its sales forecast last week, citing the loss of 10 weeks of production in Vietnam since mid-July and reopenings set to start in phases in October.The apparel company Everlane said that 40 percent of its wares came from Vietnam.Justin Kaneps for The New York Times“We weren’t anticipating a full lockdown,” said Jana Gold, a senior director with Alvarez & Marsal’s consumer and retail group, who has been helping retailers with supply chain issues. “We’re going to continue to see a high demand for goods from highly vaccinated countries or regions, but who are getting the goods from highly unvaccinated countries that could be struggling.”The logjam has put a spotlight on Vietnam’s key role in outfitting American consumers. Many retailers moved their manufacturing to the country from China over the past decade because of rising costs. New tariffs on China instituted under former President Donald J. Trump accelerated the shift.Contract factories in Vietnam manufactured 51 percent of total Nike brand footwear last year. Lululemon and Gap, which also owns Old Navy, have said a third of their merchandise comes from factories in Vietnam. Everlane said the country supplies 40 percent of its wares.As the coronavirus tore across the globe, Vietnam was hailed as a bright spot for its rock-bottom caseload and strong economy. Over 15 months, only 3,000 infections and 15 deaths were reported in the country. But during the summer, the Delta variant erupted among a population that was almost entirely unvaccinated. Now, the caseload has surged past 766,000 and the death toll is nearing 19,000.The densely packed industrial hub of Ho Chi Minh City, the country’s virus epicenter, has experienced a series of increasingly stringent lockdowns, with many factories temporarily closing in July. That paralyzed commercial activity and added stress to a strained global supply chain. Although new cases have started to decline, the government extended the lockdown through the end of September, as it struggles to vaccinate its residents.People waiting to receive their vaccination in Hanoi, Vietnam, this month.Linh Pham/Getty ImagesAt the beginning of September, only 3.3 percent of the country’s population was fully vaccinated, while 15.4 percent had received one shot.The American apparel and footwear industry has asked the Vietnamese government to prioritize shots among factory workers. Executives from roughly 90 companies, including Nike and Fruit of the Loom, asked the Biden administration in a letter in mid-August to accelerate vaccine donations, saying that “​​the health of our industry is directly dependent on the health of Vietnam’s industry.” The group said the industry employed about three million U.S. workers.On a visit to Vietnam last month, Vice President Kamala Harris said the United States would send an additional one million vaccine doses, on top of the five million already donated, along with $23 million in emergency aid and 77 freezers to store the vaccine.“The situation in Vietnam is exactly why we need to be accelerating our efforts to provide donations of vaccines around the world,” said Steve Lamar, president of the American Apparel & Footwear Association, a trade group. Retailers have been setting up vaccination sites at factories to help administer shots once doses are obtained and are trying to keep manufacturing going through “three-in-one place” policy, where workers eat, sleep and work at factories, he said.According to the latest figures from the government, nearly everyone in Ho Chi Minh City has received the first shot.A garment factory in Hanoi in January, before the lockdown.Kham/ReutersJason Chen, chairman and founder of Singtex, a garment factory owner, said last week that the company’s 350-person factory in Binh Duong Province was down to 80 people, who were living on the premises to comply with government restrictions. The factory erected a tent to serve dinner to workers and has been shifting some retail orders to Singtex’s factories in Taiwan. Mr. Chen said he was prepared for the Vietnamese factories to remain closed until November.“This year in the U.S.A., everybody wants to go shopping,” Mr. Chen said. “Some goods cannot be delivered in the right time. So it really will affect the holiday.”He added that administrators at the factory were calling workers who were in lockdown to see if they needed financial and other assistance. But many are struggling.Le Quoc Khanh, 40, who assembles electronic home appliances at Saigon Hi-Tech Park, said the rigidity of the government lockdown had been “very hard” for him and his wife, who have three small children and rent their home in Ho Chi Minh City. His employer is not yet able to bring him back, even though he is vaccinated, and he said he had been forced to borrow money at high interest rates to pay for electricity, diapers and food.“On Sept. 15, when I heard that anyone who had two doses could go to work, my wife and I were so happy that we burst into tears, but now the government says to wait until the end of September,” he said. “My wife and I are so worried. It’s like we are sitting on fire — we really need money for living now.”The pandemic’s continuing impact on crucial supply chains may have a longer-lasting impact on future investment decisions in Vietnam and other emerging economies. Companies choosing where to invest abroad have always evaluated a broad slate of conditions, like taxes, regulatory requirements and labor force availability.“All of a sudden, they have to start thinking about the public health response,” said Chad P. Brown, an economist at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Huong Le Thu, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, added: “The Delta wave is just one of the variants. Vietnam, just like other countries, will have to prepare for the long game and potentially more outbreaks even after mass vaccination.”Hoping that restrictions will be eased in October, some factories in Ho Chi Minh City that have been closed since July are preparing to resume production.At the moment, though, American companies are looking outside Vietnam, often returning to Chinese factories that they worked with previously or finding partners in other countries that are not in the middle of a surge.Whether they will have enough time to shift before the holidays is questionable. “September is a bad time to reposition things,” said Gordon Hanson, an economist and urban policy professor at Harvard Kennedy School.Vietnam has been a regular topic on recent earnings calls for retailers, and concerns have probably ballooned as reopenings have been pushed. Adidas, based in Germany, said last month that delays that started with closings in mid-July were among issues that could cost the company more than 500 million euros in sales in the second half of the year.Restoration Hardware cited the shutdowns as a key factor in its decision to push the introduction of a new collection to next spring and to delay fall catalogs. Urban Outfitters said that while it would normally replenish best-selling products during the holiday season, its top concern now was simply getting products into the United States.The outbreak emerged just as the United States appeared to be regaining its economic footing and retailers were seeing a rebound in sales after a difficult 2020.Gihan Amarasiriwardena, right, with his Ministry of Supply co-founder Aman Advani, said the brand had paid about $1.50 per $125 shirt in transportation costs before the pandemic. Now, the cost is nearly $6.Tony Luong for The New York Times“In mid-June, the world looked like a pretty good place, at least in the U.S., and we anticipated this great recovery and here we are,” said Gihan Amarasiriwardena, president and co-founder of Ministry of Supply, a small apparel brand.Production delays aren’t the only problem. Ocean freight costs have soared during the pandemic, ports are crowded and demand for air shipping has jumped so significantly that Ms. Gold of Alvarez & Marsal said some retailers had chartered their own airplanes to transport goods.Since last year, the cost of shipping a container from East Asia to the West Coast of North America has leapt to $20,000 from $4,000, according to the transportation company FreightCo.Mr. Amarasiriwardena said Ministry of Supply had paid about $1.50 in transportation costs for a $125 shirt before the pandemic. Now, the cost is nearly $6 per shirt.Macy’s chief executive, Jeff Gennette, said, “This is the one keeping me up at night,” referring to supply chain issues at ports and in Vietnam. For the company, “it’s a bigger potential problem in the near term than where Covid is right now,” he said.Retailers are already trying to prepare customers. L.L. Bean just added a banner to its website warning customers about holiday shipping delays and shortages and urging early shopping. Stephen Smith, the company’s chief executive, said that the messaging was “unprecedented” for mid-September and that the company normally started talking about holiday orders and shipping cutoffs “deep into October or even November.”Mr. Preysman of Everlane said he anticipated that the supply chain would not rebound to its prepandemic health for several years.“You have to live in a new normal where the stability of 2019 doesn’t come back for three to five years,” he said. “This is going to take a long time to sort out.”Chau Doan More

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    Canada Goose’s Image Is Challenged by Union Effort

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    Production of the company’s parkas was once fully unionized, but labor organizers say the owners have taken a harder line in recent years.Canada Goose, the luxury jacket maker, has cultivated an image that is not only chic but also socially conscious. It has forged alliances with environmental advocates and talked of its commitment to high labor standards.These efforts have paid off as the company outgrew its roots as a family enterprise and built a worldwide following for its parkas, which can cost over $1,000 and have been worn by celebrities like Daniel Craig and Kate Upton. “We believe that the brand image we have developed has significantly contributed to the success of our business,” the company wrote in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing in March.But production employees of Canada Goose, who were all unionized as of 2010, have complained that the company has taken an increasingly hard line toward labor that is at odds with its stated values.Shoppers at a Canada Goose store in New York in 2019. Employees have accused the luxury jacket maker of being anti-union.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesIn 2019, a company official was cited by a provincial labor board for unfair labor practices during a union election at a newer facility, and some employees complain that the company has retaliated against them in recent months for supporting a union.“People have fear,” said Alelie Sanvictores, a worker who has been active in union organizing. “Some people are scared to talk to me.”Canada Goose denies that it is anti-union and that it has retaliated against union supporters. “It is the employees who will decide their path forward, and Canada Goose will support their decision,” the company said in a statement. The company dismissed the official cited for unfair labor practices.On Wednesday, a few dozen labor activists picketed the Boston headquarters of Bain Capital, the private equity firm that owns and controls Canada Goose, hoping to pressure the jacket maker to endorse a union at three plants in Winnipeg.Pro-union demonstrators gathered Wednesday outside the Boston headquarters of Bain Capital, the private equity firm that controls Canada Goose.Philip Keith for The New York TimesThe tensions at Canada Goose appear to illustrate the challenges of seeking rapid growth while maintaining a high-minded reputation that helps sustain a luxury business.An immigrant named Sam Tick founded Canada Goose, then known as Metro Sportswear Ltd., in 1957. Its lone factory, in Toronto, unionized in the mid-1980s.After Mr. Tick’s grandson Dani Reiss took over as chief executive in 2001, he sought to increase worldwide sales of what had largely been a North American operation. Still, he committed to making its parkas in Canada even as much of the country’s apparel industry was moving offshore.“By keeping the majority of our production domestic, we contribute to local job growth and can more easily maintain our high manufacturing and labour standards,” the company wrote in its 2020 sustainability report.But Mr. Reiss has seemed more skeptical of unions than his predecessors at Canada Goose. After the company bought a production facility in Winnipeg in 2011, the union sought a voluntary recognition or a neutrality agreement that would allow workers there to unionize easily.“Dani Reiss said he wasn’t interested in doing that,” said Barry Fowlie, who for roughly a decade has directed the Canada Council of Workers United, the union that represents workers at the company.A company spokeswoman said the union had never asked for voluntary recognition “in any official context.”Bain Capital purchased a majority stake in Canada Goose in 2013 and listed it on the New York and Toronto stock exchanges in 2017.Under Bain’s ownership, the number of unionized workers increased to over 1,000 just before the pandemic, thanks to growth at the original Toronto plant and the addition of two more facilities there. A collective bargaining agreement that predated the new sites makes all Toronto-based production workers part of the union.But facilities in Winnipeg, where the company’s three factories had over 1,000 production workers before the pandemic, are not covered. The growth of the work force there has helped lower the company’s union membership among production workers to about one-third today, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.Workers at the Winnipeg plants say many of them make the province’s minimum wage, which is about 12 Canadian dollars per hour (around $9.65), though workers can earn more if they exceed certain production targets. The company said nearly 70 percent of workers were making more than the minimum wage.Canada Goose committed to making its parkas in Canada, even as much of the country’s apparel industry was moving offshore. Mark Blinch/ReutersIn interviews, five workers complained that managers were often abusive toward the largely immigrant work force.One worker, Immanuelle Concepcion, said her supervisor flew into a rage over mistakes in some jackets she appeared to have worked on. “She told me, ‘How dare you allow this to happen? How dare you?’” Ms. Concepcion recalled. “I was shaking. I haven’t experienced humiliation that way.”The Canada Goose spokeswoman said that the company had gotten no reports of “frequent abuse” and that all reports of harassment were investigated.In June, the company disciplined two workers at one of its Winnipeg plants shortly after they had identified themselves as union supporters. One said he had routinely been wearing headphones while working, but was warned and then written up for it — on two consecutive days — only after he went to work wearing a union T-shirt.Until then, said the worker, Trevor Sinclair, “my supervisor never said anything about it.”Canada Goose said that “no employees face disciplinary action due to union organization” and that disciplinary action had been taken against Mr. Sinclair once management became aware of his violation.Nearly 30 percent of Canadian workers are union members, compared with about 11 percent of American workers. Mr. Sinclair said he felt that Canada Goose was essentially importing an American model of fighting unions.“The way they treat us is not how Canadians treat each other,” he said. “Management doesn’t really understand what Canada is about.”Philip Keith contributed reporting. More

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    Gap Sees Its Post-Pandemic Future Outside of Malls

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    The retailer’s first-quarter sales jumped 89 percent to $4 billion from a year earlier as its e-commerce continues to grow.Gap has long been among the biggest operators of mall stores in the country. But after the pandemic, it will have a much smaller presence in traditional indoor malls as it closes Gap and Banana Republic locations and bets on the expansion of its Old Navy and Athleta brands. More

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    What is Going on with China, Cotton and All of These Clothing Brands?

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    A user’s guide to the latest cross-border social media fashion crisis.Last week, calls for the cancellation of H&M and other Western brands went out across Chinese social media as human rights campaigns collided with cotton sourcing and political gamesmanship. Here’s what you need to know about what’s going on and how it may affect everything from your T-shirts to your trench coats.What’s all this I’m hearing about fashion brands and China? Did someone make another dumb racist ad?No, it’s much more complicated than an offensive and obvious cultural faux pas. The issue centers on the Xinjiang region of China and allegations of forced labor in the cotton industry — allegations denied by the Chinese government. Last summer, many Western brands issued statements expressing concerns about human rights in their supply chain. Some even cut ties with the region all together.Now, months later, the chickens are coming home to roost: Chinese netizens are reacting with fury, charging the allegations are an offense to the state. Leading Chinese e-commerce platforms have kicked major international labels off their sites, and a slew of celebrities have denounced their former foreign employers.Why is this such a big deal?The issue has growing political and economic implications. On the one hand, as the pandemic continues to roil global retail, consumers have become more attuned to who makes their clothes and how they are treated, putting pressure on brands to put their values where their products are. One the other, China has become an evermore important sales hub to the fashion industry, given its scale and the fact that there is less disruption there than in other key markets, like Europe. Then, too, international politicians are getting in on the act, imposing bans and sanctions. Fashion has become a diplomatic football.This is a perfect case study of what happens when market imperatives come up against global morality.Tell me more about Xinjiang and why it is so important.Xinjiang is a region in northwest China that happens to produce about a fifth of the world’s cotton. It is home to many ethnic groups, especially the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority. Though it is officially the largest of China’s five autonomous regions, which in theory means it has more legislative self-control, the central government has been increasingly involved in the area, saying it must exert its authority because of local conflicts with the Han Chinese (the ethnic majority) who have been moving into the region. This has resulted in draconian restrictions, surveillance, criminal prosecutions and forced-labor camps.OK, and what about the Uyghurs?A predominantly Muslim Turkic group, the Uyghur population within Xinjiang numbers just over 12 million, according to official figures released by Chinese authorities. As many as one million Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities have been retrained to become model workers, obedient to the Chinese Communist Party via coercive labor programs.Burberry created signature check “skins” for characters in the Honor of Kings video game, which its owner, the Chinese technology company Tencent, removed over the company’s stand on cotton produced in the Xinjiang region.via Honor of KingsSo this has been going on for awhile?At least since 2016. But after The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Axios and others published reports that connected Uyghurs in forced detention to the supply chains of many of the world’s best-known fashion retailers, including Adidas, Lacoste, H&M, Ralph Lauren and the PVH Corporation, which owns Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger, many of those brands reassessed their relationships with Xinjiang-based cotton suppliers.In January, the Trump administration banned all imports of cotton from the region, as well as products made from the material and declared what was happening “genocide.” At the time, the Workers Rights Consortium estimated that material from Xinjiang was involved in more than 1.5 billion garments imported annually by American brands and retailers.That’s a lot! How do I know if I am wearing a garment made from Xinjiang cotton?You don’t. The supply chain is so convoluted and subcontracting so common that often it’s hard for brands themselves to know exactly where and how every component of their garments is made.So if this has been an issue for over a year, why is everyone in China freaking out now?It isn’t immediately clear. One theory is that it is because of the ramp-up in political brinkmanship between China and the West. On March 22, Britain, Canada, the European Union and the United States announced sanctions on Chinese officials in an escalating row over the treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang.Not long after, screenshots from a statement posted in September 2020 by H&M citing “deep concerns” about reports of forced labor in Xinjiang, and confirming that the retailer had stopped buying cotton from growers in the region, began circulating on Chinese social media. The fallout was fast and furious. There were calls for a boycott, and H&M products were soon missing from China’s most popular e-commerce platforms, Alibaba Group’s Tmall and JD.com. The furor was stoked by comments on the microblogging site Sina Weibo from groups like the Communist Youth League, an influential Communist Party organization.Within hours, other big Western brands like Nike and Burberry began trending for the same reason.And it’s not just consumers who are up in arms: Influencers and celebrities have also been severing ties with the brands. Even video games are bouncing virtual “looks” created by Burberry from their platforms.Backtrack: What do influencers have to do with all this?Influencers in China wield even more power over consumer behavior than they do in the West, meaning they play a crucial role in legitimizing brands and driving sales. When Tao Liang, otherwise known as Mr. Bags, did a collaboration with Givenchy, for example, the bags sold out in 12 minutes; a necklace-bracelet set he made with Qeelin reportedly sold out in one second (there were 100 made). That’s why H&M worked with Victoria Song, Nike with Wang Yibo and Burberry with Zhou Dongyu.But Chinese influencers and celebrities are also sensitive to pleasing the central government and publicly affirming their national values, often performatively choosing their country over contracts.In 2019, for example, Yang Mi, the Chinese actress and a Versace ambassador, publicly repudiated the brand when it made the mistake of creating a T-shirt that listed Hong Kong and Macau as independent countries, seeming to dismiss the “One China” policy and the central government’s sovereignty. Not long afterward, Coach was targeted after making a similar mistake, creating a tee that named Hong Kong and Taiwan separately; Liu Wen, the Chinese supermodel, immediately distanced herself from the brand.The actress Zhou Dongyu, the actor Wang Yibo and the singer and actress Victoria Song, all Chinese influencers who had deals with Western brands that they then  repudiated when their products were said to disrespect the Chinese people and government.VCG/VCG, via Getty ImagesAnd what’s with the video games?Tencent removed two Burberry-designed “skins” — outfits worn by video game characters that the brand had introduced with great fanfare — from its popular title Honor of Kings as a response to news that the brand had stopped buying cotton produced in the Xinjiang region. The looks had been available for less than a week.So this is hitting both fast fashion and the high end. How much of the fashion world is involved?Potentially, most of it. So far Adidas, Nike, Converse and Burberry have all been swept up in the crisis. Even before the ban, additional companies like Patagonia, PVH, Marks & Spencer and the Gap had announced that they did not source material from Xinjiang and had officially taken a stance against human rights abuses.This week, however, several brands, including VF Corp., Inditex (which owns Zara) and PVH all quietly removed their policies against forced labor from their websites.That seems squirrelly. Is this likely to escalate?Brands seem to be concerned that the answer is yes, since, apparently fearful of offending the Chinese government, some companies have proactively announced that they will continue buying cotton from Xinjiang. Hugo Boss, the German company whose suiting is a de facto uniform for the financial world, posted a statement on Weibo saying, “We will continue to purchase and support Xinjiang cotton” (even though last fall the company had announced it was no longer sourcing from the region). Muji, the Japanese brand, is also proudly touting its use of Xinjiang cotton on its Chinese websites, as is Uniqlo.Wait … I get playing possum, but why would a company publicly pledge its allegiance to Xinjiang cotton?It’s about the Benjamins, buddy. According to a report from Bain & Company released last December, China is expected to be the world’s largest luxury market by 2025. Last year it was the only part of the world to report year on year growth, with the luxury market reaching 44 billion euros ($52.2 billion).Is anyone going to come out of this well?One set of winners could be the Chinese fashion industry, which has long played second fiddle to Western brands, to the frustration of many businesses there. Shares in Chinese apparel groups and textile companies with ties to Xinjiang rallied this week as the backlash gained pace. And more than 20 Chinese brands publicly made statements touting their support for Chinese cotton. More

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    The Obstacles to Reporting on Black Representation in Fashion

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    Times journalists asked leading companies about the racial makeup of their work forces. The responses, or the lack of them, were revealing. Here, the reporters discuss what they found.Leaders in the fashion world have pledged to address racism in their business. But to determine whether anything is improving, reporters for The New York Times felt they needed a concrete set of data about the current state of Black representation in the industry.Reporters asked prominent brands, stores and publications to provide information about the number of Black employees and executives in their ranks — including those who design, make and sell products; walk runways; appear in ad campaigns and on magazine covers; and sit on corporate boards. But of the 64 companies contacted, only four responded fully to a short set of questions.In a recent article, a team of reporters published the responses from the companies, along with personal comments from Black stylists, editors and publicists. Below is an edited conversation with those journalists: Vanessa Friedman, Salamishah Tillet, Elizabeth Paton, Jessica Testa and Evan Nicole Brown.What was the biggest challenge in telling this story?VANESSA FRIEDMAN The absolute lack of consistency. You’re dealing with global organizations that speak to a variety of markets, tapping into a whole bunch of different kinds of cultural areas. They’re headquartered in different countries with different demographics, different histories, different issues with racism and different laws. We had one set of very simple questions, less than 10, that felt like the most basic, obvious things everyone could answer. But only four companies out of 64 answered completely.When did you realize the inability to answer the questions was the story?FRIEDMAN You write what you find, and we felt that it was important to get across that if you have that level of chaos in the basic information, until you can make that into a clearer picture, you can’t actually know when progress is happening.Why weren’t the companies able to answer these questions?ELIZABETH PATON Every company had its own reservations and issues and reasons. I think, to a degree, it had to do with culture. For example, how the Italian brands perceived what we were trying to do was different than the Americans. I mean, legal reasons were part of it, but the American companies notably provided more information than the European companies did. I actually think that America is in a slightly different place in its conversation about race at the moment.JESSICA TESTA It was almost surprising how reluctant some of the magazines were about participating because their numbers were the ones that were actually going to reflect well on them. I do feel like we were getting resistance from all sides, but one thing we did hear was, “I’ll be interested in participating next time.”What has the response been like to the story?PATON The majority of brands do understand the work that we’re doing, even if they found the questions really uncomfortable. A couple of brands were disappointed that their efforts were not more recognized, even if they hadn’t given us full answers. I haven’t heard any brand telling us that we made a mistake in trying to undertake this project. They recognize they need this scrutiny to change.You also interviewed people about their experience working in the industry. What did you take away from that?EVAN NICOLE BROWN It was important to me to find the intersections, but also the differences, in what Black professionals in this space felt. Sometimes people in the past have been asked to comment on things, and there has been a fear that might work against them, or their concerns would be misunderstood, but I feel like this project did a really good job at making people feel comfortable to speak. I think that this platform was appreciated, and it felt like there was no fear in terms of just sharing those really honest experiences, which definitely helped the piece and helped confirm the data or lack thereof.What questions remain really interesting to you?SALAMISHAH TILLET For me, how do you continue to diversify the leadership at the top? And then what are the structures and what are the assumptions that happen in those spaces that prevent that leadership from becoming more and more diverse? Because we would like to continue to change all aspects of the industry and all levers of the industry, but if the top remains monolithic, then really they’re the ones who are determining how the other aspects of the industry are also changing alongside it.BROWN I was really interested in the tension of where classism comes up in this conversation as it relates to representation. Even if representation in the fashion industry improves on the race front, there’s still work to be done on the socioeconomic front. Through this reporting, that was illuminated more for me — which communities are being reached and what the ideal consumer is for so many of these places we’re discussing.What do you want readers to take away?FRIEDMAN I think we learned a lot about where the sticking points are and the need for a clear picture of what is going on. You cannot move forward until you know where you are. And it is just time for us all to know where we are with this industry. More

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    The Fate and Fortunes of the Fashion-Adjacent Economy

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    #masthead-section-label, #masthead-bar-one { display: none }The Coronavirus OutbreakliveLatest UpdatesMaps and CasesThe Stimulus DealThe Latest Vaccine InformationF.A.Q.AdvertisementContinue reading the main storySupported byContinue reading the main storyThe Fate and Fortunes of the Fashion-Adjacent EconomyInfluencers and street-style photographers changed the fashion ecosystem, creating an entirely new way of selling fantasy. Then came a pandemic.Paris Fashion Week 2018, when scrums of street-style photographers were part of the everyday scene.Credit…Acielle Tanbetova for The New York TimesElizabeth Paton and Dec. 21, 2020Tamu McPherson, one of the original street-style stars and a former editor of Grazia Italia, has 319,000 followers on Instagram. For years, many have watched her pose in immaculately styled outfits at runway shows, glittery parties and on vacation. During the fashion weeks in September 2019, Ms. McPherson, who was born in Jamaica and lives now in Milan, flew to New York and back four times to produce content for her Rolodex of clients, which include the jewelry brand Bulgari, the fashion label Etro and the fast-fashion retailer Mango.In 2020, the jet-setting stopped.“I haven’t been on a plane since March,” Ms. McPherson said this month. During the pandemic’s first lockdown, all of her brand partnerships were put on hold. For months she waited, uncertain of what might happen next. But in May, the phone started to ring again. Since then, it hasn’t stopped.“There is so much work coming in, and I know it is the same for many of my peers,” Ms. McPherson said. “The key difference is we don’t travel the world for our jobs anymore. Most of what we do is now being done from our living rooms.”In the last decade, a booming economy adjacent to the fashion industry has emerged. Largely powered by social media, it is made up of careers such as high-end fashion influencing and street-style photography. As companies increasingly look for new ways to reach customers, a growing coterie of these professionals has come to stand toe-to-toe with the traditional fashion elite, like magazine editors and photographers and stylists. Like so many, their livelihoods were derailed when the pandemic hit. But unlike other corners of the fashion industry still struggling to recover, some operators within the fashion-adjacent ecosystem say that, for them, business has never been better.The podcaster, consultant and writer Camille Charriere during Paris Fashion Week in September.Credit…Christian Vierig/Getty Images“It’s been my best year yet in terms of income and projects,” said Camille Charriere, a Parisienne in London with one million Instagram followers who is also a podcaster, consultant and writer. One reason for the influencers’ resilience is their relatively low overheads and production requirements — often as simple as a smartphone and ring light — which have allowed many to pivot nimbly to working from home. Lavish international photo shoots and red carpet events are still not feasible for most brands.Instead of continuing to channel those dollars into more traditional advertising mediums, like print magazines or billboard campaigns, many companies are focusing their spending on partnerships with influencers, who offer faster turnaround times, versatile messaging options and real-time product demonstrations.“We are very used to working alone and turning the camera onto ourselves to share personal experiences,” Ms. Charriere said. “The pandemic didn’t change that.” Still, she conceded that creating digital content with partner brands had become more “stage-managed” in recent years. There is a need for heightened sensitivity from both parties.Selling a slice of fantasy, particularly at a time when people are re-evaluating their moral relationship with consumption, has its dangers. Her focus is now on creating uplifting or relatable posts with a more homespun D.I.Y. feel — even if her content still hinges on outfits from Prada, Dior and Chanel. But this hasn’t been a very difficult transition; her more successful posts have always been her more personal posts.“What we provide is an intimatized sense of interaction with our way of living, whether that is at fashion weeks, eating toast or going to the grocery store,” Ms. Charriere said. “I didn’t cover fashion weeks, I covered myself going to fashion week, and that’s what I think my followers find interesting to see.”The Sidewalk EconomyBefore the pandemic, fashion weeks in February and September represented the most lucrative time of the year for both these high-fashion influencers and the photographers devoted to capturing them on the street — hired by publications and brands to capture the fashionable people filling seats at the fashion shows.But September was a different story. This fall, there were smaller shows and fewer heaving crowds of showgoers hovering on the sidewalks of Paris, Milan, London and New York “looking for their cars.”“In Paris, which is normally the busiest — you’re running to shows from the morning until the evening — some days there was literally just one physical show,” said the photographer Darrel Hunter, who is based in London and has been shooting fashion weeks since 2008.The Coronavirus Outbreak More