LA Bluejeans Makers Fear Their Business Will Fade Away
Los Angeles is the world leader in the most American of clothing items: bluejeans. High-end, hand-stitched, designer bluejeans that will you run well over $100 a pair.
But as the U.S. apparel industry continues to shrink, LA's bluejeans business faces a threat: a nearly 40 percent tariff, imposed by the European Union, that could cripple the city's jean business.
When people talk about Ilse Metchek they use phrases like "she's a piece of work," "a force of nature," "she's something else." If you want to talk fashion, she's your lady.
Metchek, president of the California Fashion Association, has more than 40 years' experience as a fashion designer. I went to her office in downtown Los Angeles to talk about jeans and fashion.
No sooner than I could sit down, she scrutinized every piece of clothing I was wearing — especially the fabric on my jeans.
"You see the pix, the pixel? That's treatment," Metchek says. "The fabric doesn't come like that. Some machine is streaking them that way; that's expensive. And they fit. There's a different fit. You didn't buy Levi's, you didn't buy a Gap jean. You bought those."
Seventy-five percent of the designer jeans sold in the world are made in California. Over the past 20 years, an industry cluster was created in Los Angeles. While much of clothing manufacturing has been shipped offshore, high-end or more sophisticated manufacturing stayed here.
And high-end jeans are complicated — there are different washes, distressing and elaborate designs.
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