What Goes into Making a Fashion Piece?

How is it possible that clothing is so cheap? Have you ever wondered about everything that goes into making a single piece? This question applies not only to fashion but also to food, electronics, and many other things. As a clothing brand, we decided to take a look at the production of a fashion piece, a process that takes approximately 2 years from the first seed to someone's wardrobe.

What does the production and launch involve?

• Cultivating primary raw materials,
• Transporting primary raw materials for processing into yarn,
• Yarn processing,
• Transport to dyeing and the dyeing process itself,
• Transport to final finishing,
• Final finishing on finished fabric (softening, shrinking, printing, etc.),
• Transport to production (sewing),
• Supplementary materials and individual item transport (buttons, labels, prints, elastics) – it's important to note that each material has a different supplier,
• Cutting,
• Sewing,
• Possible additional printing,
• Inspection and packaging,
• Transport to the warehouse,
• Packaging transport,
• Storage,
• Photography and product presentation,
• Marketing (not just advertising but everything a product needs for market entry),
• Shipping to the customer,
• Possible product returns or exchanges.

 

That's just a brief overview. However, for fast fashion items, we must also consider additional factors:

• Enormous water consumption (for cultivation, transformation into final fabric),
• Generation of a large amount of waste (chemicals associated with fabric treatment),
• Emissions related to ubiquitous transportation,
• High costs of spaces, machinery, and the human factor,
• Costs associated with reducing emissions throughout the entire process.

 

Hundreds of Human Actions and Miles Traveled 

The entire process involves hundreds of transactions, suppliers, miles, and human actions, which are also associated with a high error rate and costs. How many miles can one piece travel when companies don't try to optimize? Let's look at the traditional production chain.

Cotton cultivation (for example, in Bangladesh) → Transport to Romania for processing into finished fabric (7,500 km) → Transport to Italy for final fabric processing and preparation for sale (1,600 km) → Transport to Turkey for sewing (2,700 km) → Transport of the finished product to the Czech Republic (2,400 km) → Transport of packaging from China to the Czech Republic (7,000 km) = 21,200 km, which is the distance typically covered by a single textile product.

If we talk about, for example, jeans, this number can be even higher, especially due to many other processes required for their production.

You probably already suspect that a T-shirt for 200 Czech crowns must account for something. Yes, it accounts for violations of human rights, environmental damage, support from the state to maintain low prices of raw materials from third countries, or extreme support for exports.

 

Take a look at our manufacturing radius for example:

Cotton cultivation, for example, in Bangladesh (yes, it often remains the same due to geographical conditions) → transport to the Czech Republic for processing into finished fabric (7,500 km) → final treatment of the fabric and preparation for sale in the Czech Republic (0 km) → transport to sewing in the Czech Republic (200 km) → transport of the finished product across the Czech Republic (200 km) → transport of packaging from the Czech Republic (100 km) = 8,000 km.

This is the distance normally covered by one of our products, when, in addition to growing the primary raw material (which is not possible here), the entire production chain is carried out with Czech suppliers on Czech territory. If we also take into account that some of our suppliers grow cotton in Portugal, Spain or Turkey, then the production radius can be reduced to about 3,000 km.

Note it's not bad that something is grown in China or Bangladesh, each crop requires a different climate and it's right to produce it where it thrives best (of course if all standards are followed - this can be taken care of for example by GOTS certification).

What Would This Bring Us?

• An extreme reduction in the carbon footprint,

• Long-lasting products of entirely different quality,

• Natural employment that isn't pushed to the minimum level due to different conditions,

• Corporate efficiency for innovation, as each product could naturally have a margin,

• Reduction in production volume with the same financial turnover (less raw materials, the same money),

• Reduction in textile industry waste because people would buy less due to higher prices and think more about how to handle goods, which would also lead to manufacturers producing less.

 

The carousel would keep turning, people would have something to wear, and companies would not have to produce unnecessary things in huge quantities just to pay for them.

 

What Could Happen if All Manufacturers in the World:

• Respect human rights,
• Produce according to environmental standards,
• Are not built on massive state support,
• Use quality materials with a low carbon footprint,
• Don't create extreme price differences and don't transport each item to multiple places.

Then, for example, one cotton T-shirt should cost at least 1,000 Czech crowns.

 

What Do We Do About It, and What Can You Do? 

We ask our suppliers about their production chains and strive to optimize everything.

You can take an interest in brands that do things similarly and support them. But in any case, buy less and pick better quality. If we all did this, those overflowing bins with items for 4 euros would eventually disappear.

Note: All the above information is approximate and simplified for the sake of generalizing the topic.

With respect to you and nature!