Why we need manufacturers at Fashion Week
Over our time working in production, one thing has become painfully clear: there’s a massive disconnect between brands and manufacturers. While brands and consumers are closer than ever, constantly engaging through social media, storytelling, and community building, the people actually making the clothes are left out of the picture completely.
This lack of visibility has serious consequences. It leads to a disconnect not just in storytelling, but in quality, sustainability, pricing, and respect for the people behind the product. When manufacturing is left out of the conversation, so is the craft, the labour, time and the ecosystem that it takes to turn a sketch into something you can wear.
Only in recent years have we seen some form of acknowledgment for the production of garments. Some luxury houses, like Louis Vuitton under Pharell, for example, have invited their ateliers onto the catwalk after shows, showing the world just how many hands and minds are involved in creating fashion moments. But the truth is, this shouldn't be exclusive to Paris ateliers or heritage brands. For every independent designer working with manufacturers, that relationship is just as critical and yet almost never talked about.
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That's why we're showing up.
To bring manufacturing into the spotlight, where it belongs. To show what happens when design and production are in dialogue, not opposition. This June, we’re bringing our world to Paris.
At our showroom, we’re not just showing product, we’re showing process. Through immersive virtual tours of our factories, hands-on access to our sample collections, and open conversations about capabilities and constraints, we’re inviting brands behind the scenes. We're here to offer more than production, we're offering perspective.
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Why does that matter?
Because acknowledgment changes everything.
It shifts how we perceive pricing and brings transparency into an industry that has been built on obscurity. It invites nuance into conversations about production timelines, quality control, and design feasibility. It challenges the myth that fashion is just about vision and aesthetics, reminding us that execution is its own kind of art.
The reality is that most consumers have no idea where their garments come from. Even more concerning, many brand owners don’t fully understand the manufacturing process themselves. Production is often treated as a separate, behind-the-scenes operation, something to be hidden, outsourced, and avoided. The industry operates in an outdated and rigid way, designed around the demands of massive brands. As a result, the design and production phases exist in isolation. Designers create with no insight into practical constraints. Manufacturers are expected to deliver the impossible with zero context. This leads to miscommunication, frustration, waste, and in many cases, products that fall short of their potential. This gap is hurting everyone.
This isn’t just a creative slowdown—it’s an operational one. The inefficiencies of physical sampling hold back momentum, limit experimentation, and create structural barriers to agility. And the strain is mirrored on the factory side—coordinating a full sampling run for a single garment is logistically heavy, costly, and rarely profitable. For factories, samples are a necessary evil, tolerated only as a gateway to bulk production, where their systems are built to scale.
Designers can’t create their best work without understanding what’s possible.
Manufacturers are being treated like service providers instead of collaborators.
And the final product, the clothes, is where it all breaks down. It’s time to bridge that divide. Manufacturers deserve a seat at the table at Fashion Week, just like designers, editors, and buyers. Not in the shadows, but in the spotlight. Because the how and the who behind production matters just as much as the design itself. Brand owners should be walking the halls of manufacturing fairs with the same energy they bring to showroom visits. And the future of fashion depends on that connection being visible, valued, and nurtured.
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Labwear Studios is not just a supplier, we’re a strategic manufacturing partner, one that understands the entire lifecycle of a garment. We collaborate with brands to bring collections to life with intention, precision, and transparency. Whether it’s problem-solving during development, adapting production methods for specific design needs, or helping navigate timelines and budgets, we’re in it for the long term. We believe that when brands truly understand how their products are made, better decisions are made,creatively, ethically, and commercially.
Our Paris showroom is a space for those conversations to happen.
To ask questions, explore possibilities, and rethink what the design and production relationship can be.