RLBL-made in China?

Originally Posted by matt22616

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(nice avatar btw)....

Cheers, Bill is a favourite of mine.

I always enjoy this topic.

Look at the product. Check the material. Check the craftsmanship. If you like it, then buy it. Period.

Originally Posted by Pantisocrat

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"ugly". "third-world." Yeah, you're a first-world class act who can't afford a $400 sweater. This is your original post small-timer

You're experiencing what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. You want it but don't want to pay for it. If you want bargain, I suggest eating at Mcdaddy's.
Hey douche bag,the sweater was at fuckin' Marshalls,was marked $750 from the factory,$399 sale,$249 clearance,and $179 final clearance.The only reason I would buy the ******* hideous thing is if I could resell it and make a profit,which I found very unlikely.It wasn't even my size,even if it was given to me it would be useless to me with the exception of resale.Do you think if I paid $180 for it it would be worth my time to resell it?I'd be lucky to get $180 back.I never even went into Marshalls until before Christmas because forum members here kept claiming that there some crazy deals to be had,although I haven't seen a single thing I would want.The only 2 half decent things I've seen were that ****** sweater and a Dolce and Gabanna white herringbone shirt with loose threads hanging off it with a listed retail of $188 and a clearance price of $90.I can proxy either if you're interested.I assume you're good for it after running your mouth so much about you being the only person who could afford a $400(actually $179)Chinese Sweater.

In regards to clothing made in China; if I can pay 400$ for a sweater I would like to think the company who made it can pay their employee who made it more than 1$ an hour. When companies move factories to China they aren't doing it because they think quality will improve, or even stay the same, but rather to cut costs. If I am buying luxury items of any sort I would prefer to buy from a manufacturer that has some pride in it's products, and isn't willing to jeopardize their quality in order to cut corners and save money.

I understand people will jump all over this and say the purpose of a company is to make money, but the markup in luxury clothing is extreme regardless of where a product is made so moving manufacturing to China from the buyers perspective simply means you are going to be even more gouged.

Originally Posted by Raralith

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I honestly can't say I can agree with that from the experience, albiet not lifetime, I have in China and Taiwan in regardless of why higher end goods are more expensive. My main reason is that there is a huge disparity of wealth in China, much worse than Western countries. Let me give you a hypothetical example:
300 million population of the United States, 10% are rich, 30% are middle class, and 60% are poor. Assuming rich being relative enough to easily afford EG/G&G/JL, only 25% of the upper middle class can afford these, and of course poor people are just poor so they can never know how great JL's are. 300 million * 10% rich + 300 million * (30% middle class * 25% upper middle) = 52.5 million potential customers.
1.3 billion population of China, 3% are rich, 3% are middle class (assuming 25% upper middle class), 94% will never never be graced with EG's. 1.3 billion * 3% rich + 1.3 billion * (3% middle class * 25% upper middle) = 78 million potential customers.

Why is there such a disparity? Education being one, rich people can sometimes afford better such as sending their parashoot kids to America for education, some poor people have to take their kids out of school to go to work. Promotions and working yourself way up are pretty tough, if non existant too. I work for a (very large) corporation I've got 6 people above me (boss is senior manager -> director -> vp -> svp -> cfo -> ceo), while I've got a few supervisors under me, and a slew of workers under those supervisors. In China, there are a load of workers (maybe changed with tech manufacturing but I've only seen garment), one supervisor, one manager, and whoever the owner is; try climbing to the top of that. A lesser issue, which thankfully is much better now, is bribery as it takes more capital to start a business since you need to pay people off, and established people can pay officials off to get more **** done. I'm talking about giving out holiday ATM cards.

I am little confused by what you are saying: Are you suggesting that the middle/upper class in China is not expanding? Do you think wealth inequality is worse than it was during the full-on Communist days? I don't know enough about socio-economic figures in China, but everything I've read has lead me to believe that there has been a huge influx of wealth into the country (hence China hold US govt bonds, etc.); perhaps this isn't distributed very evenly at all (at least by US/European standards).

I do agree with you that wealth inequality in many parts of Asia are pretty extreme. I was discussing wealth distribution issues with one of my sociologist friends, and it seems that Singapore for example has the most extreme wealth inequality (currently) world wide

Originally Posted by bluetree110

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In regards to clothing made in China; if I can pay 400$ for a sweater I would like to think the company who made it can pay their employee who made it more than 1$ an hour. When companies move factories to China they aren't doing it because they think quality will improve, or even stay the same, but rather to cut costs.

No doubt; but that's capitalism for you. Unless you're willing to go for a wholesale, world wide change of the global socio-economic system, this is not going to change anytime soon.

Originally Posted by bluetree110

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If I am buying luxury items of any sort I would prefer to buy from a manufacturer that has some pride in it's products, and isn't willing to jeopardize their quality in order to cut corners and save money.

I can't agree with you more. This is why I try to buy bespoke wherever possible, and prefer using smaller tailoring houses rather than the larger SR ones. I have more direct contact between the people cutting/sewing my garments than in a bigger house. I think we should all go bespoke, at least for things like suits, coats, ties, etc. Plenty of small firms out there with very competitive prices.

Originally Posted by bluetree110

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I understand people will jump all over this and say the purpose of a company is to make money, but the markup in luxury clothing is extreme regardless of where a product is made so moving manufacturing to China from the buyers perspective simply means you are going to be even more gouged.

My friend you've come to the wrong place for bargains...

Originally Posted by MacDaddy

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Hey douche bag,the sweater was at fuckin' Marshalls,was marked $750 from the factory,$399 sale,$249 clearance,and $179 final clearance.The only reason I would buy the ******* hideous thing is if I could resell it and make a profit,which I found very unlikely.It wasn't even my size,even if it was given to me it would be useless to me with the exception of resale.Do you think if I paid $180 for it it would be worth my time to resell it?I'd be lucky to get $180 back.I never even went into Marshalls until before Christmas because forum members here kept claiming that there some crazy deals to be had,although I haven't seen a single thing I would want.The only 2 half decent things I've seen were that ****** sweater and a Dolce and Gabanna white herringbone shirt with loose threads hanging off it with a listed retail of $188 and a clearance price of $90.I can proxy either if you're interested.I assume you're good for it after running your mouth so much about you being the only person who could afford a $400(actually $179)Chinese Sweater.

Rather than swearing at other posters and compounding our impression of you as small-timer n00b, why not engage more thoughtfully with some of the threads some of us have directed you to? The one musicguy dug up is really pretty interesting and salient:

http://www.styleforum.net/showthread.php?t=127041

Originally Posted by cold war painter

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I can also think of a couple of other reasons why an individual might not wish to buy MIC items: 1. If production of an item in their home country has been offshored to China, they may resent the loss of jobs and/or feel that the traditional way of making that item can't be maintained.
I just wanted to come back to this. I feel that what you've said (though probably reflective of some real sentiments people have) is really fraught. Where anger/frustration should be directed is really against the companies that have moved their product manufacture elsewhere, rather than against the workers of China. What I find frustrating in this thread is that many of the anti-China posters have been directing most of their angst against Chinese workers, rather than the multinational companies that employ them. It's worth pointing out that the Chinese companies/workers are simply providing a service; if US/European companies hadn't made the decision to move their manufacturing their, it would be a non-issue. If you don't like that RL is making goods in China, don't buy there products...Simple as that! Also following this line of thought, what I'd also like to know is why many anti-China posters don't have a problem with garments being made in Italy. Ralph Lauren is an American company; following this line of logic, then it should be equally upsetting to the American patriot to have garment manufacturing for RL moved to Italy. After, why have Caruso or Cantarelli make your suits when you could use Martin Greenfield? Sadly what I would suggest is that there's a strand of xenophobia among some of the white US/European posters that expresses itself in some of these Made in China threads. Italy is okay because those people are like us and have similar values. China isn't because they're culturally so different and have different value systems, etc.

Originally Posted by clee1982

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Quality comes from the ordering company. QC can be enforced tightly if the upper management has eyes on it.
Do Ralph Lauren crack hard on quality? No idea, but my made in China (Polo stuff) sweater had hold out as well as my made in Scotland stuff (Brooks Brothers) ones.

By the way you're not going to find China brand name in clothing, because it's not the way it operates. It's like how Taiwanese's electronic company used to be. You don't hear a single brand from Taiwan but all the component are made in Taiwan (back in the days), they just take orders. This has changed now as people start to realize how powerful a brand name is.

Now that's electronics/cars and other heavy industrial products, would the same happen in textile? Maybe, but probably not today or tomorrow, might take a bit longer.

Things like this always goes in cycle,

150 years ago, English laugh at product coming out from Germany
100 years ago, European laugh at product coming out from America
50 years ago, American laugh at product coming out from Japan
20 years ago, American laugh at product coming out from Korea

so how many years before China can make a change?

Thats a good point, but then I look at all the stuff I have thats made in china and realize how ****** and cheap it is.

I've read through all of the replies and I haven't found one that mentions the main reason why so many knits are coming out of China: the machinery. Most knits these days are machine made, even quality ones. There are some really advanced machines that can knit entire garments. The term for this is "fully fashioned" knitwear. The thing is that these machines are EXPENSIVE and take up A LOT of space.

The knitwear industry in New York has pretty much been obliterated because of the cost of the machines, especially the need to upgrade them every so often, and the space needed to house them due to high rent and high capital requirements in order to purchase enough knitting machines (they cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per machine) to be able to produce enough to fill orders. The knitting factories in china, on the other hand, have the financing to buy a whole slew of machines, as well as the space to store them. A lot of the time, the technicians who are trained to use these machines just input a bunch of numbers onto a keypad and viola, you have a sweater 15-20 min. later, or longer, depending on the complexity of the knit. Yes, the machines are computerized and can usually do pretty much anything imagineable!

Seriously guys, most of the knits in Scotland and Italy are probably machine made too. It's usually the chunky sweaters and such that are "hand knit". Anything that does not specifically say "hand knitted" is most likely machine made. Think about that for a minute especially with regards to the origin of manufacture. The big brands are the ones who purchase the yarn and tell the manufacturers, "here you go, use this yarn that we sourced from abc....to make this v-neck....and I don't want to pay more than xyz dollars per unit for it".

Originally Posted by academe

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Sadly what I would suggest is that there's a strand of xenophobia among some of the white US/European posters that expresses itself in some of these Made in China threads. Italy is okay because those people are like us and have similar values. China isn't because they're culturally so different and have different value systems, etc.
Which is pleasantly ironic, because more likely than not nearly every possession they have is made in China, or heavily uses parts made in China, or is 2/3 assembled in China and 1/3 assembled in Italy, or...

My biggest problem with MiC luxury goods is that the companies move the manufacturing to China, but the price remains the same. I'm fine with buying something MiC as long as the quality is good, but don't move the manufacturing to a place with no environmental controls / poor labor conditions and then charge me the same price as when it was made in Italy / UK. That just makes me feel like I'm getting ripped off.

Originally Posted by academe

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I am little confused by what you are saying: Are you suggesting that the middle/upper class in China is not expanding? Do you think wealth inequality is worse than it was during the full-on Communist days? I don't know enough about socio-economic figures in China, but everything I've read has lead me to believe that there has been a huge influx of wealth into the country (hence China hold US govt bonds, etc.); perhaps this isn't distributed very evenly at all (at least by US/European standards).

I do agree with you that wealth inequality in many parts of Asia are pretty extreme. I was discussing wealth distribution issues with one of my sociologist friends, and it seems that Singapore for example has the most extreme wealth inequality (currently) world wide

The middle class is practically not expanding, and while it is slowly, extremely slowly, by the time you'll see the "equality" we have in America, I'm sure the ice caps would be melted down. Wealth equality in the communist days isn't really wealth equality either. My grand parents were ludicriously rich, but they had all their land and wealth taken from them and had to leave to Taiwan. That time wealth and luxury was more set along from political party lines so it wasn't so much a wealth inequality as "those that do and those that don't." And there certainly has been a huge influx of wealth in China, absolutely huge, but it's all going to the top. I know in America we talk about the "trickle down effect" where spending from the rich eventually help the poor, but that really isn't the in China, case in my opinion.

I feel like there are 2 groups of people here:
1) People who believe Chinese products are inferior
2) People who don't like the fact that producers charge the same high prices for MiC goods

To group 1:
Some of the Made in China products that I own include iPhone, tourbillon and Landcruiser. I've never had quality problems with them other than the ones that plague any phone, watch or car. I don't think its fair to assume that all MiC products are low quality just because they are MiC. I'm pretty sure if the country can produce high speed rails (at 200 mph they are a little faster than Acela), they can produce a couple of sweaters.

To group 2:
I agree that it is unfair for some retailers to charge the same price for products that's MiC vs a developed nation. There should be a difference in price due to the lower production cost. e.g. My chinese watch costs way less than the swiss variety. (The car is actually more expensive than it would be in the US, but that's more due to taxes and local supply/demand than anything else.)

That said, I've never looked at the financials for RLBL, just because they charge a high price and incure less cost by producing in china doesn't mean they are profitable or greedy. It might be posible that they have a big corporate overhead and is bleeding money despite their high gross margin. Again this is just a posibility and not in anyway backed up by research.