Patagonia Clothing: Made Where? How? Why?

As a huge fan of Patagonia, I became interested in the background of their products and its journey. In the article, Patagonia Clothing: Made Where? How? Why? from the Cleanest Line, they explain the quality standard that they keep their products at making it difficult to find the right manufacture. Majority of the United States manufacturers for clothing have shut down forcing Patagonia to look overseas for the creating of their products. As part of their standards, they refuse to have any material put together by children, forced labor, or sexual labor. They partnered with the Fair Labor Association (FLA), a non-profit organization dedicated to decent working conditions and fair wages. They also made contracts with their manufacturers to make sure that there was no subcontract work without their permission. Before placing an order, Patagonia sends a representative out to the location to check the materials and work environment so approve the conditions. In the early 2000’s, Patagonia made the wrong decision to expand their factories to law-wage labor. This caused them to not be able to track the conditions of the factories and seriously hurt their revenue due to poor quality, customer dissatisfaction, and long inspection waits. To fix this, they reduced their 100 factories to 65, and today are at 45 factories. After finding some American factories, they brought a small percentage of their factories to the states. Their factory in Texas employs disabled workers, making it one of their top priorities to stay in business with them. With all of the different countries they are associated with, they have investigated the appropriate living wages in each country to pay fairly. All together, Patagonia is a modern company that believes in equality and great products equally.