US Apparel Companies Can’t See a Future Without China
Brands are finding few factories outside the country that can produce the quality and quantity they require.
Actively Black founder Lanny Smith.
Photographer: Michael Tyrone Delaney for Bloomberg Businessweek
When Lanny Smith founded Actively Black Inc. in 2020, he hired factories in China to produce the brand’s athletic wear. But last year, concerned about production delays caused by China’s Covid lockdowns, Smith explored buying elsewhere. He shipped samples to a supply chain agent who’d assured him there were alternatives in Latin America. “He hit me back the next day and said, ‘You’re not going to find anybody who can do this in the Western Hemisphere,’ ” says Smith, 38, a former basketball star at the University of Houston.
For American companies like Actively Black, buying from China has become more challenging in recent years because of increased tariffs, snarled supply chains, factory shutdowns under Beijing’s Covid Zero policy and rising geopolitical tensions that have forced America Inc. to contemplate the fallout from a possible invasion of Taiwan.