The International Apparel Federation has unveiled a manifesto that urges the clothing sector to rethink one of its most entrenched assumptions: that the lowest unit price is the best measure of competitiveness.
Developed by the federation’s Business Innovation Committee, the document argues that the industry’s biggest financial losses are often created not on the sewing floor but elsewhere in the system, through overproduction, swollen inventories, markdown pressure, trappe...
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d capital and friction between supply chain partners. Its broader message is that apparel businesses need to focus less on isolated manufacturing cost and more on productivity across the full chain, from fibre and fabric to final delivery.
Cem Altan, the federation’s immediate past president, said the pressure on the industry had become too broad for marginal change to be enough. Matthijs Crietee, the federation’s secretary general, said the sector’s future competitiveness would depend on producing more closely in line with demand, reducing inventory exposure and building value through more collaborative operating models.
A central theme of the manifesto is what the federation calls smart flexibility. That means better alignment between production, planning, information and incentives, so that factories and brands can respond more effectively to real market demand. The document places particular emphasis on postponement, upstream technology, closer textile-apparel integration and commercial arrangements that reward cooperation rather than purely transactional buying.
The federation also seeks to reposition manufacturers as active organisers of flexibility and value creation, rather than as interchangeable contractors competing only on price. To help turn that idea into practice, the manifesto sets out three stages: define, to agree direction and principles; enable, to test and implement; and standardise, to develop common language, metrics and scalable methods.
The initiative builds on the International Trade Centre study “Under the Banyan Tree: Buyers and Suppliers in Fashion” and uses the 5C framework , contracts, capital, capacity building, commons and creator market , as a guide for collective action.
The International Apparel Federation, which represents apparel manufacturers, their associations and supporting businesses across more than 40 countries, has increasingly framed supply chain collaboration as central to sector reform. Its wider work includes sustainability and decarbonisation efforts, with pilot programmes in production hubs such as Türkiye and Bangladesh aimed at shared responsibility for emissions reduction.
By releasing the manifesto, the federation is inviting brands, suppliers, technology firms, investors, policymakers and industry groups to back a model it says is more resilient, more efficient and better suited to the demands facing global apparel today.
Source: Noah Wire Services
