Common Threads Round Up #18 | Tariff Edition
An entire post dedicated to tariffs and their impact on the fashion industry.
🗓️ Tuesday, April 8th 2025
Source: Fortune
💰 Liberation Day’ Tariffs: The Full List - Sourcing Journal
Okay…where to begin. First, as you’ve undoubtedly heard, Trump introduced some pretty intense tariffs. And this GQ article is a good FAQ if you’re afraid to ask what a tariff is in conversation. American consumers are going to be hit extra hard, 98% of our country’s apparel is imported. And it’s not just imported from one place - supply chains are (unnecessarily) complex - elements for garments (think fabric, buttons, embellishments) all come from different countries and then are assembled somewhere, and then imported to the U.S. All of these steps will now have extra costs associated with them.
This article has the full list of countries and the tariff percentage.
🥊 Tariff Turbulence: The end of inexpensive fashion - Gad’s Newsletter
Can we bring manufacturing back home? While there's hope for reviving domestic textile jobs through automation and localized production, questions remain about costs and feasibility. This newsletter dives deep into the opportunities and challenges of reshoring production.
🤦🏻♀️ Trump's Tariff Chaos Forces Women-Led Brands to Strategize and Adapt—Fast - Marie Claire
The White House's sweeping new tariffs have shaken global markets and left retailers scrambling. Independent brands stand to lose the most. "I think the reality is sinking in now: we’ve built our entire model on something that isn’t resilient," read on to see what unspun’s cofounder, Beth Esponnette, has to say about it.
👟 Shoe Companies From Crocs to Nike Pummeled After New Tariffs Outside China - WSJ
Breaking this up into categories to start…naturally the shoe industry was in panic after the tariffs. Most shoe companies have moved manufacturing to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia which were hit with some of the steepest tariffs in Trump’s plan. Here’s a FastCo article on why the tariffs are so detrimental to sneakers in particular. Interestingly, Trump is showing openness to making a deal with Vietnam on tariffs, which caused footwear stocks to slightly rise after they tanked when tariffs were announced.
🚫 The tariff loophole that drove Shein and Temu to fast-fashion dominance is closing in a month - Fortune
We’ve covered the tariff exemption that allows goods shipped from China valued under $800 to avoid duties many times. After Trump brought back this exception, it’s now ending again in a month. Needless to say, consumers are worried, even though there isn’t an exact understanding of how much prices will rise. According to this article in The Cut, 80% of consumers are concerned with how these costs will affect their shopping. And this isn’t just about fast fashion, the SSENSE girlies are also freaking out over import duties. And luxury has been struggling with declining sales and already sky high prices that have angered consumers, and these tariffs will only make it worse. But given that part of the reason fast fashion is successful is because of the low prices there is some where fast fashion goes from here and if its the end of the Shein hauls.
📢 ‘A lot of companies are going to fold’: The fashion industry reacts to tariff turmoil - Glossy
Let’s zoom out a bit as to what the overall implications of this will be. We’ve already seen a ton of smaller sustainable brands shutter late last year, and these tariffs will inevitably cause more that were just scraping by to close. Brands are comparing the tariff to ‘a Covid-level’ crisis and saying that they don’t have enough time to adjust their supply chains and ways of working. Larger brands are currently torn between absorbing costs to keep prices steady, as consumers are already price sensitive and worried about inflation, or increasing prices which will likely lead to fewer sales.
🌎 New US tariffs throw fashion’s supply chain into turmoil - Vogue Business
Moving onto supply chains. Supply chains are complex today as we all know, and fashion brands can’t just up and move production back to the US to avoid these tariffs. The tariffs were more aggressive than brands were anticipating, and thus will require further diversification. Reshoring and bringing back production to the U.S. has been thrust into the spotlight, but there are still obvious challenges like labor, price and the lack of infrastructure that exists here. Just a few months ago BOF published a piece stating that Made in America was still a ‘fantasy’, but these tariffs will inevitably have brands looking to make that fantasy a reality in the near term.
That’s it for now! Until next week 🤙
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