Country of Origin: Reshoring Implication in the Context of the UK Fashion Industry

Abstract

Since the 1990s there has been a significant trend in offshoring clothing production in the UK fashion industry. The trend of producing overseas has occurred with the aim of attaining lower labour cost advantages and is influenced by a range of factors, such as labour cost, the labour-intensive nature of the work, price pressure caused by other retailers, and unpredictable market demand. Recently, there has been increasing debate about bringing manufacturing back to the UK, especially in the clothing sector, in order to reduce lead-time and to provide better quality products. However, no research to date has addressed the implication for re-shoring in the context of country of origin. Thus, to fill this gap, qualitative research was undertaken to understand the concept of country of origin in the context of re-shoring as well as the implications linked to re-shoring. The chapter briefly outlines the changing role of retailers and manufacturer brands in the UK, highlighting how the differences between the two are blurring, while also outlining the different dimensions of country of origin in the context of retailers and manufacturer brands using a case study approach. Each dimension of country of origin, e.g. country of manufacture, country of parts, country of design and country of brand origin, also provides implications for re-shoring in the UK; this is supported by semi-structured interviews with key informants from the UK fashion industry. The chapter ends with a conclusion which summarises the study and provides avenues for further research.