As tariffs and freight disruption make overseas sourcing harder to predict, one of the few large apparel manufacturing hubs left in the U.S. is getting a closer look.
On July 23, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative finalized new Section 301 tariffs tied to forced-labor import rules across 60 economies, with duties of 10% or 12.5%, subject to exemptions. The duties took effect on July 24. On August 12, Reuters reported another sign of shipping disruption: Vessel traffic through the Strait of Hormuz fell to its lowest daily level since August 5 as shipowners avoided the waterway amid continued regional hostilities. Kpler tracked eight vessels on August 11, versus a 10-day average of about 12.
That does not mean fashion brands can simply move overseas production back to the U.S. Most American apparel manufacturing capacity has disappeared over decades. But Los Angeles remains an exception. California is the leading U.S. state for apparel manufacturing, and L.A. remains its main hub, with a concentration of pattern makers, sewers, wash houses, dye houses, fabric suppliers and finishing facilities that is difficult to reproduce elsewhere. Los Angeles accounts for roughly 23% of national apparel-manufacturing employment, as of June 2026, with about 17,000 workers in the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale area out of 72,600 nationwide, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The ecosystem is not without risk: June 2025 immigration raids in L.A.’s Fashion District led to worker absences, reduced factory production and delayed shipments, according to industry reporting.
That infrastructure is what is becoming more useful now. Anna Esposito, account director at L.A. manufacturer Lefty Production Co., told Glossy that the company is seeing more emerging brands interested in producing locally, particularly because they can review samples in person, change fit or construction quickly and avoid committing to large orders before they know how a product will sell.
She said tariffs alone are not causing brands to move production to L.A. Instead, they are “one more factor making the premium for domestic manufacturing easier to justify.” Based on the shipping costs Lefty sees when working with brands, Esposito said moving goods by air when timelines get tight can cost three to four times as much as shipping by vessel.
That flexibility is central to Los Angeles-based Rat Boi, which founder Alexa Tietjen started in her garage in 2019. The brand has grown 100 times over three years, she said. When its bolero sets sold out, Rat Boi restocked them within four weeks. Tietjen said an overseas order would have taken at least 12 weeks.
“We can meet demand instead of watching it pass, and we don’t have to guess a season out, overproduce and sit on dead inventory hoping it sells,” Tietjen said.
L.A. production can cost Rat Boi 30-50% more depending on the garment, Tietjen said. But Emma Treibatch, the brand’s planner and merchandiser, said the brand weighs that premium against the cost of overbuying inventory. Rat Boi tracks sell-through, weeks of supply, back-in-stock notifications and wholesale demand before deciding whether to reorder.
“Planning becomes way less ‘crystal ball’ and way more ‘paying attention to what’s happening right now,’” Treibatch said. Instead of making large bets months ahead, the brand can place smaller orders and respond to actual demand.
Southern California-based Campbell & Kramer is using the same local network for product development. The brand makes 100% of its assortment in Southern California, normally producing 100-200 pieces per style and color, though it has produced runs as small as 10 units.
For its Aquamarine Summer capsule with creator Julia Mervis (193,000 TikTok followers), a June 1 idea-based text between founders Presley Campbell and Alden Kramer led to a launch one month later. During that period, the brand sourced deadstock bamboo in downtown L.A., developed the pattern, custom-dyed the fabric at a Gardena dye house, shot the campaign and manufactured the collection locally.
That cluster of specialists is one reason L.A. is different from simply manufacturing elsewhere in the U.S. Brands can move between fabric suppliers, pattern makers, dye houses, wash houses and factories without sending samples back and forth internationally.
The founders have seen the contrast when they cannot source locally. The brand recently bought recycled lace overseas from China after failing to find a domestic supplier that met its specifications. The order took months, and the brand said the fabric ultimately cost almost twice as much per yard after shipping and tariffs were factored in.
For very new brands, the same ecosystem can reduce the risk of launching without much sales history. Four-month-old swimwear label Mayanna produces entirely in California, with initial runs of around 200 pieces per style. The overseas factories it considered typically wanted around 1,000 units per style. Denim brand De: Part uses California manufacturing for tees, a newer category for the company. Founder Christina Choi said its local production takes around six weeks, versus roughly three months, according to overseas factory timelines the brand received during production sourcing.
At the luxury end, L.A. label Tendler, which launched last week, shows why that infrastructure can also support more complex, higher-priced products. Founder Will Tendler, formerly of Amiri and Madhappy, launched with denim, knitwear and leather goods priced from $225-$1,450.
“If you just focus on the per-unit costs, you’re oversimplifying the economics in a way that could severely hurt your brand,” Tendler told Glossy. Brands also have to account for development time, repeated sampling, shipping, inventory risk and the ability to catch production problems before they become expensive, he explained.
Tendler’s family has worked in California’s clothing industry since the 1950s. He said L.A.’s manufacturing base has shrunk dramatically since his grandfather’s generation, but specialist knowledge remains, particularly in denim. His wash house is about six blocks from where garments are sewn, with cutting and finishing partners also nearby.
The brand still imports Italian raw materials, meaning local manufacturing does not remove freight exposure. But Tendler said the L.A. network lets the company work on different stages simultaneously once materials arrive. “When we can work in L.A. on things in parallel instead of sequentially, it saves us a lot of time,” he said. Production in other markets could be as much as $20 less per unit, Tendler said, based on his own experience at Amiri and other brands, but he still sees L.A. as a long-term production base because of the speed, oversight and specialist knowledge it offers.
These brands are not suddenly reshoring because tariffs went up; most were already manufacturing there. But as international sourcing becomes less predictable, L.A. offers something increasingly scarce in the U.S.: a concentrated apparel infrastructure where brands can develop, test, manufacture and, in some cases, scale without rebuilding that supply chain from scratch.
But for emerging brands with little room to absorb higher costs, there are limits to how much production can realistically stay domestic. Rat Boi, for example, expects it may eventually use overseas factories for proven, high-volume products.
“Local for testing and speed, overseas for the stuff that’s proven and where we need volume,” Treibatch said.
At the luxury end, Tendler argues that L.A.’s value is in the specialist knowledge that still exists there. Elsewhere, the U.S. has lost much of its apparel-making workforce and craft expertise after decades of offshoring, making skills like denim washing, pattern-making, sewing and finishing harder to find domestically. Tendler said that is one reason he sees L.A. as a long-term production base rather than a temporary solution.
“There’s incredible pattern makers, incredible sewers, the wash houses,” Tendler said. “The existing knowledge here is something that really needs to be leveraged.”
