Our fourth annual edition of Holiday Bytes is finally here! Please click the image above to view the PDF. All of us at MBF Trend Consulting wish you happy holidays and a joyous new year. This is our last post of 2010. See you in the new year!
December 20, 2010
Happy Holidays!
Our fourth annual edition of Holiday Bytes is finally here! Please click the image above to view the PDF. All of us at MBF Trend Consulting wish you happy holidays and a joyous new year. This is our last post of 2010. See you in the new year!
December 8, 2010
December MBF Favorite Picks
You know the holidays are almost here when Starbucks is serving up their sugary seasonal drinks, cashiers are cheering "Happy Holidays" as you pay for your groceries, and parks all over NYC are once again filled with unique hand-made goodies for their annual gift markets.
Here in New York City, the holiday season is just getting started!
This month, we celebrate our favorite picks with our top ten eco-friendly gift guide. Whether you are looking for a gift for your co-worker, mother, your significant other, (or even a special treat for yourself!), this list is something for everybody!
Happy Holidays from MBF!
Here in New York City, the holiday season is just getting started!
This month, we celebrate our favorite picks with our top ten eco-friendly gift guide. Whether you are looking for a gift for your co-worker, mother, your significant other, (or even a special treat for yourself!), this list is something for everybody!
Happy Holidays from MBF!
Priti Holiday Set, Priti NYC
Priti NYC polishes are completely non-toxic and made without toluene, dibutyl phythalate (DHB) and formaldehyde. Completely safe for children and moms-to-be, this is the go-to nail polish for all of your holiday festivities! Buy a set for your girlfriends -- it's sure to add the perfect sparkle to any outfit.
Weekend Bag, EcoAlf
Made from 100% recycled materials and 100% recyclable, EcoAlf's new line of eco-friendly accessories are tres chic! This weekend bag is perfect for your winter get-away.
Organic Wool Shawl, ABC Home
Made from organic wool, using an environmentally friendly boiling process and low environmentally impact dyes, these shawls make the finishing piece to any winter look.
Pamper your skin and stay moisturized all winter long with Saaf's organic super hydrating body balm.
Track Bike, Horse Cycles
Horse Cycles is a one-man custom bike shop located in Brooklyn, NY. Offering custom made bikes locally, by hand, and with unlimited possibilities, these beauties are sure to give you a ride of a lifetime.
Recycled Diamond Branch Stacking Ring, Kristin Coffin
Kristen Coffin's online Etsy shops sells beautiful recycled jewelry, using recycled silver, gold, and jewels. Real twigs are often casted in her work, producing unique one-of-a-kind work.
Champion Lug, Keds
Loomstate partnered up with Keds to make these military-inspired boots. Constructed of an organic canvas upper, recycled rubber lug outsole, and nickel free eyelets, with a faux shearling liner and Loomstate print, these sneakers are sure to keep your toes warm and fabulous!
"For You" Foil-Stamped Gift Tags, Green Depot
Add one of these simple but cute tags to each of your gifts this season! Made of 100% recycled duplex chipboard, make all of your greetings stylishly eco-friendly.
Filtered Water Bottle, Bobble
Bobble Water is a must for any of your friends who still do not have a reusable water bottle. Available in different colors and sizes, buy a whole set for your friends and family!
Berber Euro Pillow, ABC Home
Each pillow is hand-woven by a Moroccan woman using organic wool made from antique carpets. As each are individually made, each pillow is unique and slightly different. The Berber Euro pillow, featured above, is the perfect accessory to light up any room!
December 1, 2010
The Future of Cheap Labor, "A Focus on China" (Part 1)
This is the first of a two-series blog focusing on the latest developments of China. Please stay tuned for the follow-up blog post: East Meets West, Part 2 of "A Focus on China."
Without a doubt, China is the country of 2010. With their spectacular economic growth just within the last thirty years, they have already completed large improvements in their infrastructure, redesigning buildings, airports, and streets. So as the standard of living has been raised, a quickly growing upper and middle class have followed suit. Hence, a focus on growing the domestic Chinese market is, and has been, on every smart businessman's mind.
Some of you may remember our blog post a few months back in regards to China's growing fashion scene and Hermes' new strategy of creating a special brand specifically for the Chinese market. We briefly discussed the expectation of a new niche of stylish Chinese individuals with an increasing demand for luxury fashion and Chinese-based designer goods. We speculated major changes within China; and since then, the country has always been on our radar. So today we follow up with an updated post with our latest thoughts and what to expect.
As the Chinese economy continues to boom, factories all over the country have been on strike requesting higher wages and better working conditions. Just google search "Chinese factories strike" and you are sure to end up with dozens of articles linking multiple companies recently affected by their workers demanding double, or even triple the wage they used to receive for their hard labor. Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contract maker, made headlines as a string of suicides among their workers became public. Since then, Foxconn, along with many other factories increased their workers' wages by up to 66 per cent.
As China now stands as the second largest economy in the world, their manufacturing industry is changing rapidly as workers will no longer accept the poor working conditions and low wages they used to receive for the last several decades. As a result of higher production costs, many companies who were once so dependent on China's low production costs have either relocated their business to alternative countries who can provide lower costs, such as Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, and multiple South American countries, or increased their product prices and/or altered the designs. For retailers sourcing cotton, it also does not help that the price of cotton rose almost 80 percent since July and prices are expected to remain high.
With the new labour laws and the need to provide competitive production prices, there is a rising trend of factories relocating from their coastal locations to central China. In 2009, there were 90.8 million migrant workers in the coastal eastern part of China, a drop of about 8.9 per cent from the previous year. The number of migrant workers in western China increased by 35.8 percent, reaching 29.4 million, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. In the past, the eastern coastal cities were the driving force of the economic development. However, as factories continue to move more inland, many workers no longer have to live in migrant workers' dormitories and can easily commute to work on a daily basis. As most factory workers used to travel more than 2,000 kilometers away from home and lived apart from their families, the relocation to move inland is a drastic change to thousands of people's lives.
So what does this all mean for those of us in the fashion circle? As production standards raise, does "Made in China" hold a new perspective? As retailers have been doing business in China for decades, the quality of Chinese-made goods have steadily increased. As it already has proper infrastructure, it is in much better condition in comparison to other Asian and South American countries. Some are looking to develop in Africa, but it will still be years before getting things up and running. And as many companies are finding cheaper alternative in these countries, Chinese made goods are considered more reliable.
This change also brings up the future of cheaply made clothes and it's lack of sustainability. How long will retailers continue moving their production from one country to the next? China is not the only one in protest as there were a quiet but steady increase of strikes all over the world this past year, including India, Vietnam, and Cambodia, just to name a few. Retailers cannot depend on cheap labor as a long-term investment and must rethink their profit margins. And as we live in a more transparent society, there is a social and environmental responsibility that these large conglomerates must uphold. Expecting workers to work long hours doing monotonous routines with very little pay is dehumanizing, treating the worker more like a machine rather than a human being. The production systems of the 90's are out of date and will not work in the times of today.
The increased price for production and labor is only a small fraction of what is to come over the next several years. As China continues to reconfigure their manufacturing businesses, the future of the world's production system no longer remains the same. Hopefully, these adjustments will allow an improved quality of life for many of these factory workers. The only question is, will we, as consumers, be able to accept this change?
photo via: Time.com
Without a doubt, China is the country of 2010. With their spectacular economic growth just within the last thirty years, they have already completed large improvements in their infrastructure, redesigning buildings, airports, and streets. So as the standard of living has been raised, a quickly growing upper and middle class have followed suit. Hence, a focus on growing the domestic Chinese market is, and has been, on every smart businessman's mind.
Some of you may remember our blog post a few months back in regards to China's growing fashion scene and Hermes' new strategy of creating a special brand specifically for the Chinese market. We briefly discussed the expectation of a new niche of stylish Chinese individuals with an increasing demand for luxury fashion and Chinese-based designer goods. We speculated major changes within China; and since then, the country has always been on our radar. So today we follow up with an updated post with our latest thoughts and what to expect.
photo via: Time.com
As the Chinese economy continues to boom, factories all over the country have been on strike requesting higher wages and better working conditions. Just google search "Chinese factories strike" and you are sure to end up with dozens of articles linking multiple companies recently affected by their workers demanding double, or even triple the wage they used to receive for their hard labor. Foxconn, the world's largest electronics contract maker, made headlines as a string of suicides among their workers became public. Since then, Foxconn, along with many other factories increased their workers' wages by up to 66 per cent.
photo via: USA Today
As China now stands as the second largest economy in the world, their manufacturing industry is changing rapidly as workers will no longer accept the poor working conditions and low wages they used to receive for the last several decades. As a result of higher production costs, many companies who were once so dependent on China's low production costs have either relocated their business to alternative countries who can provide lower costs, such as Vietnam, India, Bangladesh, and multiple South American countries, or increased their product prices and/or altered the designs. For retailers sourcing cotton, it also does not help that the price of cotton rose almost 80 percent since July and prices are expected to remain high.
With the new labour laws and the need to provide competitive production prices, there is a rising trend of factories relocating from their coastal locations to central China. In 2009, there were 90.8 million migrant workers in the coastal eastern part of China, a drop of about 8.9 per cent from the previous year. The number of migrant workers in western China increased by 35.8 percent, reaching 29.4 million, according to the National Bureau of Statistics of China. In the past, the eastern coastal cities were the driving force of the economic development. However, as factories continue to move more inland, many workers no longer have to live in migrant workers' dormitories and can easily commute to work on a daily basis. As most factory workers used to travel more than 2,000 kilometers away from home and lived apart from their families, the relocation to move inland is a drastic change to thousands of people's lives.
So what does this all mean for those of us in the fashion circle? As production standards raise, does "Made in China" hold a new perspective? As retailers have been doing business in China for decades, the quality of Chinese-made goods have steadily increased. As it already has proper infrastructure, it is in much better condition in comparison to other Asian and South American countries. Some are looking to develop in Africa, but it will still be years before getting things up and running. And as many companies are finding cheaper alternative in these countries, Chinese made goods are considered more reliable.
Honda workers on strike, photo via: Wall Street Pit (LA Times Photo)
Foxconn employees, photo via: Wall Street Pit (Bloomberg photo)
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