Made in America

A brief history of the life & death of domestic apparel manufacturing

If you’re on the hunt for vintage clothing, one of the most promising clues you can find is a tag that says “Made in America.” On its face, the reason is simple: most clothing used to be made domestically, now it’s not. Beyond the obvious, I think it’s really important to understand exactly what that means for the fashion industry in the past, present, and future.

An ILGWU advertisement courtesy of the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress

Looking at the specific percentages of domestic apparel production really shines a light on how stark the changes have been in the last 50-ish years. According to the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), the percentage of clothing made domestically looks like this:

1960’s: 95%

1970’s: 75%

1980’s: 70%

1990’s: 50%

2000’s: 29%

Now: 2-3%

The shrinking percentages above help frame the statistical likelihood of a “Made in America” garment to be vintage. Combine those numbers with the staggering increase in overall garment production, and domestically made clothing becomes an even smaller sliver of the pie.

Prior to the 1960’s, the domestic manufacturing percentages were pretty consistently close to 100%. Import and export of goods was much more complicated due to a combination of shipping, duties and tariffs, and other logistical issues. It simply wasn’t worth it to transport clothing or accessories overseas, except for in the cases of special luxury pieces. I’ll get into the ins and outs of foreign made vintage in a future letter!

A 1920’s advertisement for Hermés

The decline of American-made garments started in the mid 1970’s, with a steep drop off in the 1990’s. So what happened?