Clothing industry
Clothing industry, or garment industry, refers to the range of trade and industry sectors involved in the production and value chain of clothing and garments. This includes the textile industry, embellishment using embroidery, the fashion industry, apparel retailers, and trade in second-hand clothes and textile recycling. Textile factories are also called "mills". Textiles factories or "mills" turn the natural or synthetic materials into Yarn which will be sent for weaving and knitting. Then apparel textile mills make wearable pieces from those textile cloths. The producing sectors build upon a wealth of clothing technology some of which, like the loom, the cotton gin, and the sewing machine heralded industrialization not only of the previous textile manufacturing practices. Clothing industries are also known as allied industries, fashion industries, garment industries, or soft goods industries.
Terminology
By the early 20th century, the industry in the developed world often involved immigrants in "sweat shops", which were usually legal but were sometimes illegally operated. They employed people in crowded and hostile conditions, working manual sewing machines, and being paid less than a living wage for up to 10-to-13-hour shifts. This trend worsened due to attempts to protect existing industries which were being challenged by developing countries in South East Asia, the Indian subcontinent and Central America. Although globalization saw the manufacturing largely outsourced to overseas labor markets, there has been a trend for the areas historically associated with the trade to shift focus to the more white collar associated industries of fashion design, fashion modeling and retail. Areas historically involved heavily in the "rag trade" includes London and Milan in Europe, and the SoHo district in New York City. There are considerable overlaps between the terms clothing-/garment-, textile- and fashion industry. The clothing sector is concerned with all types of clothes, from fashion to uniforms, e-textiles and workwear. Textile industry is less concerned with the fashion aspect but produces the fabrics and fibres that are required for tailoring. The fashion industry closely follows and sets fashion trends always supplies the latest in non-functional clothing.History
Historian Judith Bennett highlights the significant connection between women and the clothing industry, noting that "In both 1381 and 1700, two of every five women found employment in service, and a third worked in textile or clothing manufacturing." This long-standing relationship between women and textile production laid the foundation for shifts in labor patterns during industrialization.One such shift was the rapid adoption of sewing machines, which first became popular in middle-class households and later among working-class families. This technological change fueled the rise of "outworkers," individuals who worked outside traditional factory settings, often from their homes. These outworkers, primarily women, frequently took on the lowest-paying jobs, becoming integral to an expanding system of subcontracted labor in the clothing industry. By the turn of the 20th century, the significance of this labor force was evident: a 1901 census of Bristol, England, revealed that female outworkers made up nearly one-third of all workers in the clothing industry.
This phenomenon of women leaving their homes to pursue wage labor is not limited to historical contexts in Europe. Researcher Michaela Doutch examines similar patterns in modern Cambodia, where approximately 80 percent of women garment workers are migrants who have left their rural family homes to seek employment in Phnom Penh. Doutch explains that these women are driven by a combination of factors, including diminishing family farmland for agriculture and the growing necessity of earning wages to support their families as traditional subsistence methods decline. She also notes that these rural-to-urban migrants often work not only in factories but also in their homes, contributing to the subcontracting labor market that mirrors historical practices in Europe.
This continuity of subcontracting labor across time and geographic regions underscores the persistent role of women as a flexible and low-cost labor force in the clothing industry. Whether in historical England or contemporary Cambodia, the economic pressures driving women into garment work—and the structures that exploit their labor—remain consistent.
Production
The garment industry is a major contributor to the economies of many countries. The industry for Ready Made Garments has been criticized by labor advocates for the use of sweatshops, piece work and child labor.Working conditions in low-cost countries have received critical media coverage, especially in the aftermath of large-scale disasters like the 2013 Savar building collapse or the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire.In 2016, the largest apparel exporting nations were China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, Turkey and Indonesia. By 2025, it is projected that the United States market will be worth $385 billion. It is also projected that the e-commerce revenue will be worth $146 billion in the United States by 2023.
Production in developing countries
The worldwide market for textiles and apparel exports in 2013 according to United Nations Commodity Trade Statistics Database stood at $772 billion. In 2016, the largest apparel exporting nations were China, Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Hong Kong, Turkey and Indonesia.Export processing zones are designated areas where manufacturers are able to import materials, process, and assemble goods for re-export, exempt from taxes and duties. Many manufacturers view EPZs as catalysts for economic growth with the minimal possible regulations, thus relocating production to these zones to maximize profits. According to UN Women, women comprise a significant majority of the workforce in EPZs, accounting for 90% in Nicaragua, 80% in Bangladesh, and 75% in Honduras, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka.
Bangladesh
Many Western multinationals use labour in Bangladesh, which is one of the cheapest in the world: 30 euros per month compared to 150 or 200 in China. In 2005 a factory collapsed and caused the death of 64 people. In 2006, a series of fires killed 85 people and injured 207 others. In 2010, some 30 people died of asphyxiation and burns in two serious fires.In 2006, tens of thousands of workers mobilized in one of the country's largest strike movements, affecting almost all of the 4,000 factories. The Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association used police forces to crack down. Three workers were killed, hundreds more were wounded by bullets, or imprisoned. In 2010, after a new strike movement, nearly 1,000 people were injured among workers as a result of the repression. On 24 April 2013 in the Savar Upazila of Dhaka District, Bangladesh, where a commercial building called Rana Plaza collapsed. The Rana Plaza once stood as an 8 story building that housed many garment factories, including Zara, Joe Fresh, and Walmart. On April 24, 2013, the building collapsed and lead to the death of 1,134 people with many more injured. Structural cracks of the Rana Plaza were identified the day before, but many workers were told to still come into work the next day. The Rana Plaza tragedy brought worldwide attention to the reality of the textile industry and modern day textile workers. The search for the dead ended on 13 May 2013.
Although many advancements have been made since the early 1900s, "by the early twenty-first century, little had changed for textile workers the world. In the textile industry, most of the employees are female. They move to the cities from the rural areas to work at the textile companies to support their families.Female mill operatives in Bangladesh, for example, earn wages 25% percent lower than men. The average salary was 9,984 taka for women and 10,928 taka for men. In 2023, Trade Union demanded minimum 2300 taka monthly salary for garment workers, however, the monthly salary only increased to 1200 taka. A common tactic by manufacturers is to outsource and move the labour to "countries with the lowest wages, and by proxy, the lowest working standards". In the twenty-first century, women are still often underpaid and undervalued in terms of the textiles they produce and "because of its historical association as being "cheap" and "flexible," women's labor within the textile and garment industries is particularly suited to the dynamics of production along the global assembly line. It is cheap both in terms of prevailing wage levels and in terms of the unhealthy and unsafe conditions under which women often work".