Specifically how is where clothes are manufactured determined?

The basic equation is about balancing distance to markets and distance to raw materials based on shipping cost of raw material versus shipping cost of finished product, and then of course cost to manufacture (mostly labor). More and more it becomes just about cost of labor, but the whole thing gets more complicated all the time. Clothing is especially complicated. You see a lot of things made around the middle east and Greece because cotton is grown there, mainly. Southeast Asia has become prominent lately because of low labor costs. There’s one other thing in clothes, which is whether or not a machine can do it all. Straight denim can be completely machine made, but anything with spandex is likely to require hand sewing (well, a sewing machine, but a person guiding it, fabric that doesn’t stretch can be handled entirely by machine. So anything stretchy, labor cost is more of a factor. Womens bathing suits are a prime example of something that is likely to be made by the lowest paid workers because it requires more hand work. Same is probably true of your undergarments made in Sri Lanka. The shirt from Greece is probably entirely machine made, so labor cost is not as much an issue. That may be true of the things made in Israel too, but it may also just be close to the cotton supply. I don’t know enough about labor in Israel. There’s also a matter of tradition, but it changes easily.

I could do a whole treatise on this, textile manufacture is all about geography and seeking low cost labor.

Is it about determining where something will be made, or is it, rather, that people who are doing the manufacturing bid on a contract for wholesalers to, say, the Gap, or Target, or Macy’s, and so it’s the buyers for the retail outlets who decide where something will be bought?

Thanks @Snarp. GA!

Bathing suits are particularly interesting, I think. I go through a lot of them. There are different grades of material – some last longer than others – so that must be factored into the price. If they are labor intensive, then I agree you’d expect to see them being made where labor is cheapest. I have noticed that expensive suits typically are made of better material, again this is logical. What is strange, though, is that there is a woman here locally that will make a custom suit for a price point between the cheap and expensive (~$40) in pretty good fabric. She is running a business, and cost of living is high here, so she must be making some profit. So the markup on bathing suits, retail, must be pretty big…

It would be pretty interesting to see a comparison chart of different mfgs’ clothing, where they are made, how much it costs, and how much it sells for. Sounds like an accounting nightmare though.

@Jeruba – That is a great question. I hope someone will have the answer.

In most cities, there are ‘fair trade” retailers that research the source and work conditions under which the clothes, shoes or what ever are made. You can probably find similar vendors on the internet.

I hope that helps.

@Dr_Lawrence Thanks, yes I’ve found sites like that before.

I know this is quite an old question, I just wanted to let you know about the BBC documentary series “Blood, Sweat and T-shirts” which explores topics such as these.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/thread/blood-sweat-tshirts/