Sources in Your Closet

Jules

Jules

SF VIP
If you went to your closet, how many items would NOT be made in Asia? Not too many years ago, it could have been 50/50. Not now, even if they have a label that makes you think otherwise. Things like So & So of NY.

This may be easier for Europeans to says they have fewer because of easier access and shorter shipping distances and tariffs.

As much as I dislike buying “Made in …”, it’s almost impossible to find things are made in Canada or the US. Even upper scale brands that advertise/brag “Made in the USA” will slip in items that aren’t.
 

when i was a kid, "made in Japan" meant cheap and a touch traitorous?? iykwim.

i frequent dollar stores for a select number of things. seems "everything" (a slight exaggeration) of items are made in china. $stores are a God-send to teachers for supplies they're always running out of. i wouldn't buy ANY food items from china! china has shown they don't care about their people with their lax or non-existent health/safety regulations... like baby formula that killed babies. seem to remember pet food from china that killed pets.
 
Very little clothing in my closet has been made in Asia .. but almost everything that I buy from Poundland et al.. has.... and lots of what I buy on Amazon comes from there too..
 

It would be great if manufacturing came back to our shores. It could happen in our post-covid crash - we need jobs/employers - but only if new/renewed industry is willing to accept less profit to pay reasonable wages. And our gov'ts should be incentivizing business growth now, especially manufacturing, and we all need to be willing to pay a little more for products made in our own countries.
 
I believe we have to get over the idea that the kind of manufacturing, and manufacturing jobs , like post WWII, are gone. Today, manufacturing is automated. It's machines making stuff, not humans. If a company cannot automate, it cannot compete. That is why there are no longer US factories employing 40,000 workers. Today the largest employ about 6,000. Plus, the US is still one of the world's largest manufacturers. And we live in a global economy. We sell our wheat, corn, and other crops to China and the rest of Asia, for items made in China, and the rest of Asia. They eat our food, we buy their stuff.
 
There are a few things made in China and Bangladesh, and I remember at the time when hubby and I were buying them, how much it pained us to know we were buying goods from overseas, but it's a reflection as to just how few garment industries exist that produce goods right here in Canada, the United States of North America, or the UK.

With that said we still try and avoid buying any and all things associated with Asia.
 
In a few more years it won't matter.

Amazon_Robert-Ariail.jpg
 
If by closet you mean a wardrobe, mine will have almost all hand made clothes and accoutrements, much of it made by my wife, but I also buy from bespoke tailors, milliners, and cordwainers. The products are all hand made in my country, but where do the artisans source their materials? India is renowned for it's fabric industry and Argentina produces much of our leather, so even when a product carries a label like: "Made in the UK," it still doesn't necessarily mean that it's unique to the UK.
Some large manufacturers cynically exploit that sort of loophole, shipping in a ready made product in it's component parts and then assembling it here in the UK so that they can advertise it as being: "Made in the UK."
 
fuzzybuddy said:
believe we have to get over the idea that the kind of manufacturing, and manufacturing jobs , like post WWII, are gone. Today, manufacturing is automated. It's machines making stuff, not humans. If a company cannot automate, it cannot compete. That is why there are no longer US factories employing 40,000 workers. Today the largest employ about 6,000. Plus, sthe US is still one of the world's largest manufacturers. And we live in a global economy. We sell our wheat, corn, and other crops to China and the rest of Asia, for items made in China, and the rest of Asia. They eat our food, we buy their stuff.
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This saved me a lot of keystrokes

Its a world economy

What I don't understand is, since we're all so automated, and its not labor vs labor.....why China products?
 
horseless carriage said:
If by closet you mean a wardrobe, mine will have almost all hand made clothes and accoutrements, much of it made by my wife, but I also buy from bespoke tailors, milliners, and cordwainers. The products are all hand made in my country, but where do the artisans source their materials? India is renowned for it's fabric industry and Argentina produces much of our leather, so even when a product carries a label like: "Made in the UK," it still doesn't necessarily mean that it's unique to the UK.
Some large manufacturers cynically exploit that sort of loophole, shipping in a ready made product in it's component parts and then assembling it here in the UK so that they can advertise it as being: "Made in the UK."
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I used closet a simile to describe not a wardrobe (because I don't have one)... but a walk in closet or dressing room, as I have here ...☺️
 
hollydolly said:
but a walk in closet or dressing room, as I have here ...☺️
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A walk in closet, now that's class. We live in a five bedroomed house, how can two people justify that many bedrooms? There's a guest room with it's en suite bathroom. We have a bedroom apiece and one of the bedrooms is my office. That's only four of course. Every lady needs not a wardrobe, not a walk in closet, every lady needs an entire bedroom, one wall of which, houses her shoes. She could give Imelda Marcos a run for her money.
shoes 001.JPG
 
horseless carriage said:
A walk in closet, now that's class. We live in a five bedroomed house, how can two people justify that many bedrooms? There's a guest room with it's en suite bathroom. We have a bedroom apiece and one of the bedrooms is my office. That's only four of course. Every lady needs not a wardrobe, not a walk in closet, every lady needs an entire bedroom, one wall of which, houses her shoes. She could give Imelda Marcos a run for her money.
View attachment 167206
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yes very similar to the set up here.. I have a whole wall cupboard full of shoes in the dressing room , but there's doors on them to keep the dust off...

.. and we have 2 home offices in the house....I have no dancing shoes like mrs HC... anymore.. but I do have more than 50 pairs of shoes and boots.. :giggle:
 
Gary O' said:
What I don't understand is, since we're all so automated, and its not labor vs labor.....why China products?
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I vaguely remember an economist on TV say it was location, location, location. The Arabs sell oil, because they have it. North America has huge fertile prairies, so they supply the food. And China is perfectly positioned to gather nearby raw materials to be manufactured.
 
When my kids were little we used to watch TV cartoons on Saturday mornings. Decades later my son was in Italy on vacation and in a street market saw a t-shirt with Muttley's picture on it. He bought it for me and brought it home. When I looked at the label I found that it was made in Morocco. American cartoon.
 

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