Planet Money is making a t-shirt, which is crowd-funded by
kickstarter. They revealed on their previous episode that they were curious about how a t-shirt gets made and the economy based around it. It is a huge global industry, which stems from growing fiber like cotton or synthesizing fibers like polyester to garment manufacturing, with a lot of steps in between.
From
the Planet Money Kickstarter page:
"Planet Money is making a very special t-shirt. A t-shirt unlike any other. A t-shirt that can tell you the story of its own creation. Planet Money is a joint project of NPR and This American Life, which focuses on coverage of the global economy. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, "Meet me at the bar and tell me what's going on with the economy." Now imagine that's actually a fun evening. That's what we're going for at Planet Money.
Almost every single t-shirt out there -- from the cheesiest vacation tank top to the fanciest boutique designer tee -- is the result of a complicated global odyssey. We will take you on that odyssey and document the route our t-shirt took to your back. We'll meet the people who grow the cotton, spin the yarn, and cut and sew the fabric. We'll ride on the cargo ships that bring our t-shirt from factories in Bangladesh and Colombia to ports in the US. And we'll examine the crazy tangle of international regulations which govern the t-shirt trade the whole way.
Our t-shirt will have a cool little code on it that you can scan with your smartphone. It’ll bring you to an interactive page where you can see photos of the people who made your shirt and follow its journey around the globe."
Myself and my peers at PhilaU take for granted our intimate knowledge with the subject of the textile industry, which is not limited to apparel, it extends itself to home textiles, furnishings, and then there are fields of research and development (and we get to work directly with textile engineers and product designers alike!). For those who are on the outside and looking in, this NPR project gives some insight on what is involved.
Essentially, they are trying to do everything themselves and end up piggybacking on the established company of Jockey. What I find interesting is that they are trying to navigate this complex industry system, when there are many companies that are vertically integrated, meaning they grow their own cotton (or whatever other fiber) then have spinners, weavers, knitters, cut &sew production, and then, sometimes, they also own their own holding facilities for their product once it is finished!
Some companies control the whole supply and sales chain or just parts of the supply chain and etc. This allows for more flexibility for everyone in the company, from designers to retail managements. However, many places are confined to their network of manufacturers - they design a year or more out before products hit stores so that every part of the supply chain can do their part. Shipping fiber to the spinners, spinners to weavers, weavers to printers/finishers/cut&sew, etc.
What is the advantage of vertical integration? Fashion cycles are accelerating, meaning it is harder and harder to predict what will sell in a year or a year and a half. People want trends quickly and maybe they don't need a million pieces of product, but rather, 50k pieces of this and another 50k of that. It allows for more flexibility.
For further reading on vertical integration, the
NYTimes wrote an article about vertical integration in the fashion business,
the Economist uses examples from the car industry about vertical integration and the gray areas it can occupy, and
TechCrunch has some thoughts on how e-commerce will affect new companies.
