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© Michael Chew
At its peak, New York's Garment District produced around 80 percent of domestic clothing. By the 1990s, that number had fallen sharply as production moved overseas and real estate prices skyrocketed. These days, a tight-knit circle of roughly a dozen designers — including brands like Small Talk Studio, Kate Walz, and Archie — are helping to keep their work as home-grown as possible, reports Highsnobiety writer Lukas Mauve.
Working across the Garment District from different neighborhoods, they sustain a human-scale fashion ecosystem of weavers, cutters, sewers, screen printers, trimmers and small vendors. It’s less an approach defined by competition than by mutual support, less by order minimums than by personal connections.
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