The science of garments

Saipan is known for high its high quality garments, but those of us not in the industry may not appreciate how complicated, difficult, and competitive the industry really is. All I ever knew about garments was that I like well-made clothes. That doesn’t have to mean “flashy.” It doesn’t have to mean “extravagant.” But it does have to mean “quality.”

As for the more technical side of things, earlier this year the Wall Street Journal provided a glimpse into international garment dynamics. On March 26, Tiger’s New Threads, scribed by Gabriel Kahn, began like so:

“As Tiger Woods cruised toward victory at the Masters…executives at Nike Inc. looked on in horror…the heat and humidity were laying waste to the collar of his signature Nike polo shirt.”

Yikes, not exactly a showcase worthy of high-dollar sponsorship, endorsements, and slick television showmanship.

Indeed, as any Commonwealth resident can attest, heat and humidity are the ultimate test of a shirt, and what looked good in the store can wind up looking like wilted lettuce under the sun. The shirt looks bad. You look bad. Tiger Woods looks bad. And Nike…well, Nike doesn’t want to look bad.

And thus started an international, high-stakes mission to find a more robust shirt collar that did justice to the Nike name. And you thought spy novels had all the tension and intrigue…

The day after the Masters tournament, Nike put in a call to a Hong Kong garment manufacturer, seeking a re-engineered shirt that didn’t wilt in the collar. This was, by the way, a competitor to the maker of the original shirt. A team of designers and chemists worked on the project, developed an improved collar, and wound up flying some prototypes to Nike for testing by May.

Chemists? Prototypes? Testing? This sounds like aerospace. Welcome to the high tech world of garments.

The design. The weaves. The dyes. The fibers. The type of cotton used. The article delves deeper and deeper into the science of garments, and the competitive economic dynamics are never far behind. Oh, those dynamics. The article uses terms like “razor thin margins” to describe the profit profile of the industry, and “cutthroat” to describe the competitive realities of the pricing situation the factories face. This isn’t an industry that sits on its butt, it is an industry that is constantly striving to improve its quality and its pricing. It’s sink or swim every day. And many sink. Talk about pure competition.

And talk about my gray hairs, I can’t help but insert some geezer perspective on this. When I was a kid, clothes were a pretty substantial expense for a family, and I remember my mother getting mighty stressed out when we lived in Illinois and she’d take us to a store called the “Copper Rivet” for school clothes, as the autumn leaves were dropping and parents’ checkbooks were opening. Over the decades, though, competition in the garment industry has seen prices actually fall when you account for inflation, an observation I base on personal memory, not any hard data, since I don’t have something readily at hand that provides a clothes deflator calculation. But Mom agrees, and that’s all that matters.

And I also remember when candy bars cost a dime…and a new Ford Pino cost $2,995…by golly, those were the days…

As for the future, it is going to get more, not less, competitive for the garment industry. But one thing’s for sure: Saipan can take pride in its accomplishments as a high-quality, world-class garment maker. See? The Commonwealth can be globally competitive when it tries.

(Ed Stephens, Jr. is an economist and columnist for the Saipan Tribune. Ed4Saipan@yahoo.com)