In part three of Dumbing Down American Design, we talk with Han Lee, owner of Fine Line Production, a company that does everything from pattern making  to grading and hang tags. We also speak with Nancie Chan of Tyler Production, a cutting and sewing floor. Both companies are located in New York City’s historic Garment District.

We revisit the driving question: Has our quest for convenience and rock bottom prices forever altered fashion and is American design becoming a thing of the past?

A week ago today, I was in New York City with Part 2 guest, designer Anthony Lilore. Anthony was nice enough to take time out of his schedule to take me around New York City’s Garment District.

Our first stop is with Han Lee, owner of Fine Line Production. Han sits down to talk and the conversation quickly veers from what he does for clients to who his clients are. Lee currently works with about 30 designers who help sustain his company. If they are succeeding, so is he.

“[I work with] the smaller designers,” he says. “The designers who want to be part of their design process, who can’t afford to manufacture overseas.”

I ask if perhaps smaller designers are more authentically connected to what they’re selling. He smiles and nods.

I throw out a comment for reaction: that (rumor has it) the bigger designers don’t even design much of their own collections. They simply pick a design and ship it to their manufacturing facility overseas where the facility offers a few more designs based on the original. The final design is picked and quickly put into production.

“True,” he says.

Second stop: Nancie Chan of Tyler Production, a cutting and sewing floor, also in the Garment District.

She’s a little perplexed as to why I would want to be there. There’s something to be said about working various jobs in the fashion industry, and never getting to see behind the scenes. This is what my trip is all about. As a buyer, rep, writer and marketer for sustainable designers over the past five years, I’ve always wanted to step inside a room like this.

It holds no glamour; it’s a space filled with hardworking women who are simply passionate about what they are doing. I ask Nancie if she works with larger or indie designers more frequently.

“The smaller ones,” she says, adding that some she works with come from unlikely fields. “Like finance,” she says.

I ask her if she means the designer cmarchuska; her face lights up. Yes, that’s the one.

I own a few cmarchuska pieces and love that I now know exactly where the pieces were made. Chan has no problem saying on the record that her most problematic clients are the bigger designers who never pay or are detached from their labels and the decisions made about them. She cites at least two designers who owe her $100,000.

“What about the smaller designers?”

“They always pay on time,” she says.

There are two scenarios I want you to imagine. In one, I see these connected, independent designers who pay on time ruling American design. They have convinced you that paying a little more is worth it because their clothes are real and inspired and sustainably manufactured, all in the U.S.A. They’ve rubbed off on the mainstream designers and the majority is now producing with a conscience – and with personal inspiration. Our clothing has a story.

American manufacturing facilities in major cities are working together to source and invest in clean facilities, educating the steadfast seasoned employees in new ways where fit, fashion and functionality work together. Our fashion technology is innovative and we have become dynamic in our approach. Because you believe in these smaller designers, they are thriving financially instead of waitressing by day and designing by night.

They enrich design by offering you choices of their own creation, not the pick-one-of-three-designs-you-like scenario that comes out looking like, well, everything else.
You feel unique in your clothes and dressing is a fun part of your day.

But in scenario two, larger designers rule American design. Their made-from-afar designs are being shipped to their holding warehouses where they are shipped to boutiques. Designers are nothing more than a good marketing campaign. They are no longer designs. We all dress virtually the same.

And in some dystopian Logan’s Run-like nightmare where we’re brainwashed that the consumption of our resources are best managed by killing everyone who reaches the age of 30 instead of just being conscious of what we consume, we no longer care what we wear, all designers get phased out and large corporations like Wal-Mart clothe us (and feed, and supply us with everything we need to survive).

Image: it’s life

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In a special four-part Dumbing Down American Design miniseries, EcoSalon takes a closer look at American design and considers different perspectives from leaders in the design and fashion world.

Has our quest for convenience forever altered fashion?

If we are to invest in sustainable design, doesn’t it start with the designer knowing something about fit? The pattern maker knowing something about quality pattern making? The retailer knowing something about which clothes to purchase based on construction versus fad? And ultimately, as consumers driving demand, what is our responsibility?

Over the next four weeks, we’ll provide insight into these questions.

New York Times fashion critic, Cathy Horyn, has initiated many conversations about the changing fashion world. In a recent article, Horyn speaks about the death of one era, where garments are made and sold in New York city’s Garment District, and the birth of a newer one, where “the shift of technical skill, and gradually even design and merchandising,” are moving to other countries, namely China.

Horyn cites this dominance, as well as “the gradual decline of technical expertise in the face of apparent consumer indifference about fit and quality,” as two major problems primed to diminish, if not altogether destroy, stateside design traditions permanently. (Horyn’s lengthy transcript with Cindy Ferrara, veteran production specialist-turned-manager of product development and production at Danskin, is worth the read here and serves as the inspiration for  this series.)

When it comes to meaningful mass design, has the U.S. lost its edge?

One need not look any further than the average American for the answer; so content are we with fast fashion, ill-fitting clothing and spandex.

East German-born Tina Schenk, founder of Werkstatt, a sample room and pattern development studio in New York City’s garment district, says her diverse client base that includes the likes of Calvin Klein, Alexander Wang and Thakoon, as well as newer labels like eco-label Restore Clothing, came out of a need for quality pattern making and samples here in the U.S.

“What I found is that the further away you went with development, the bigger the support system of technical designers and production people had to be in order to deal with all of the communication going back and forth,” says Schenk. “The further you went away, the longer the lead times got as well, which took away time you could actually spend refining the designs. And very often what you got back from the overseas factories wasn’t reflective of what you had asked for, even with these  hundreds of emails going back and forth.”

Schenk adds that many companies, operating under the pressure of intense production schedules, will typically just settle for the resulting poor fit and construction.

“Quality design development takes great care. You have to take your time in order to pay attention to every detail, and time is money,” says Schenk. “The is a lot of pressure from retailers to produce things at a certain price and I think that producers started cutting corners to give in to these demands.”

She also points out the pressure that colleges, graduate schools and media place on the design world.

“In the age of ‘Project Runway‘ everyone wants to be a designer and there is a lack of respect for the people who can bring these designs into fruition, especially by the younger people coming fresh out of fashion school,” observes Schenk. “There aren’t many people who still want to learn the craft, and those who do have to go to college for it and graduate with a lot of theoretical knowledge, but without a solid foundation that an apprenticeship could provide.”

How will upcoming and experienced designers alike better the design world enough to give Americans an appreciation for what they wear – perhaps even an education?

“I think that producers have to start taking responsibility and show consumers what a well-made garment is,” Schenk says. “People will know a good garment when they see it, they will know good fit once they put it on and realize how wonderful it makes them feel. And once you know what it feels like, it is hard to go back.”

It may be that the proverbial squeaky wheel gets the grease, but in the case of the fashion consumer, Schenk believes responsibility starts with designers.

“I am not sure who said it, but there is a saying that if you ask for only the best, you will receive only the best,” she says. “I would add to this: if you don’t know what is the best, you won’t know what to ask for.”

Image: photographerpandora

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