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Lisa Katayama
One of the businesses in the factory, which had been in operation for thirty years, closed this month due to declining revenues. Most of the women who worked there, who don't speak English, are uneducated, and don't possess any other skills besides sewing, will now be filing for unemployment. As SF Indie Fashion put it, "It’s a reminder that fashion is not born on the rack, nor is it all glitz and glam, and that, yes, real people make the clothes, shoes and handbags we covet and blog about and wear."
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It would be interesting to know if these workers were paid SF's minimum wage and mandatory health care. Were these factors in the business shutting down?
I'm astounded such a business lasted as long as it did in San Francisco!
First post is kneejerk reactionary. What is this, SFgate?
Urban clothing factories in the US have been getting killed by improvements in international shipping for two decades. Sure the women are paid $3 a dress, but the company probably charges $10 -- compare that to somewhere in China where they can make it for $2 and ship it by air for $2 -- there's just much less business to go around.
It's bad for the immigrant women who work there, obviously, but it's also a loss for consumers because those seamstresses are quite good at their work.
It's a shame that pretty much every job that can be shipped overseas has, or will be soon. An economy of people delivering pizzas to each other can't be sustained for very long, and not everyone can be in charge of a few giant companies.
Why didn't they make dresses from home and sell them in front of Macy's for hundreds of dollars?
so.....
The space is vacant and available?!?
Jacobe -- are you kidding? The space is open and available? Of course... there is no shortage of light industrial space in San Francisco. In fact, there is so much that lots of it is getting rezoned to other things -- better to have a condo or a restaurant than NOTHING.
Also -- don't forget the reason a dress is $10 from the factory and $100 at the store is that many of the dresses NEVER SELL. So, the $10 dress that sells from Macy's for $0 needs to be covered in some way or another.
Another way to handle it is to carry no inventory -- but empty stores are not fun to shop at.