Welcome to Executive Action Items, a Glossy+ member-exclusive series driven by monthly focus groups with subject matter experts. The bi-weekly series offers immediately actionable takeaways for workers navigating the rapidly evolving beauty and fashion industries.
This month, Glossy brought together a group of executives from the fashion industry to talk about issues related to product development and manufacturing. The executives compared notes on topics like expanding into new categories and balancing between creative vision and the realities of manufacturing and tariffs. Below is a recap of a part of the discussion focusing on how the implementation of tariffs is affecting product development and the lack of infrastructure to support making apparel at scale in the U.S.
Focus group members:
Melanie Travis, founder and CEO of the 8-year-old swim brand Andie Swim. Travis has shepherded Andie’s growth from an upstart indie brand to one now carried in major retailers like Nordstrom and REI.
Athena Wrann, creative director and vp of design at Parade, the DTC underwear brand that was acquired by Ariela & Associates International in 2023. Wrann joined in 2024 and was previously svp of design at Victoria’s Secret.
Mallorie Dunn, founder and designer of SmartGlamour, a fashion brand focused on inclusive design. SmartGlamour recently made the switch from being a DTC e-commerce brand releasing batch collections to a fully custom, made-to-order brand. Dunn is also an adjunct professor at the Fashion Institute of Technology and Parsons School of Design.
Tariff chaos is making product development a lot more complicated
Travis: “We are currently 100% manufacturing in China. It’s a bad place to be at the moment. Everything about how we develop products is going to change, end-to-end and soup-to-nuts. We made big efforts to diversify our supply chain a few years ago. We were working with factories in Vietnam, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Then, we found these great specialty factories in China that do swimwear and were impressed with the quality, so we consolidated everything back in China. And now, of course, I’ve been up since 7 a.m. this morning on the phone with our partners in China, trying to figure out how to make this work.”
Wrann: “The way we work, we make everything as a prototype in New York at a sample room we own. That’s really unusual for me, since that’s not how Victoria’s Secret worked. We have pattern makers in New York that we employ and a fully functional sample room, so we make everything here up to the point of full production when we kick it over to our factories. It’s a blessing and a curse. It can prolong the fit process. You might make a pattern adjustment here, and then you’re sort of stepping backward to get it to the factory. So there are pros and cons.”
Travis: “Truly, tariffs are the biggest challenge happening right now. There are other challenges, but everything else is lesser. Adding a 165% tariff rate to our expenses? It’s just not possible. We will not survive. We’re decently sized, but we don’t sit on top of millions and millions of dollars for a rainy day. And the rainy day is now. Figuring out how to overcome that without going out of business is our No. 1 priority.”
Dunn: “I have a completely different perspective because it doesn’t affect me in the same way. Because I design and make everything myself, I don’t do production or sampling in other countries. But I will notice it in the fabric stores in New York, where I get my materials, because they often get the fabric from other countries. I’m in a lucky position to have a really wonderful relationship with the fabric stores here, so I won’t be affected by price increases as much, but that’s a very privileged position to be in.”
Travis: “One of the hardest parts is not just the tariff rate, but the volatility. It’s how it changes every day. At first, Vietnam had a higher tariff rate than China, and I know brands were stampeding to get out of Vietnam and move to China. But then, two days later, China now has double the tariff rate. It takes us maybe six to nine months to get a new factory online in a new country. I’m on the phone every day with factories around the world trying to understand capabilities. But what if China goes back down to zero tomorrow? It’s incredibly hard to plan.”
Wrann: “I have some Covid PTSD of the decimation of the supply chain and the rebound afterward. There’s a lot of fear of where is an adequate place to be to do your manufacturing. The impending effect on the economy and people pulling back on orders is having an impact. It can take years to set this stuff up. There are a lot of threats happening.”
Travis: “You cannot bring production to the U.S. There is no capacity to make swimwear at scale in the U.S. When Andie first launched, we did, but that was because we were making 100 pieces at a time. Last week, I placed an order for 100,000 swimsuits. You cannot do that here. The infrastructure just does not exist.”
Dunn: “Nothing about this is good for anyone. It’s not possible to produce clothing at scale here. But I wish that weren’t the case. I wish the Garment District was back to what it was. In the context of history, it wasn’t that long ago that you could produce clothing in the Garment District, but it’s a false argument from the pro-tariff side that we put these tariffs in place, and suddenly we can make stuff here again. But one possible positive outcome out of this whole mess is that maybe we do start to invest in the infrastructure again. But putting the tariffs in place before that infrastructure exists isn’t helping anyone. There is no quick fix to solve any of those problems now.”
