Garments’ Production Countries of Origin: History
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Contributor:
Ambre Creux-Martelli
,
Joséphine Riemens
,
Andrée-Anne Lemieux

For legislative and managerial purposes, brands are increasingly transparent in disclosing more information on the countries of origin (COOs) involved in their products’ production to their consumers. This could encourage consumers to adopt more environmentally and socially responsible consumption behaviors, particularly considering the negative externalities associated with the fashion industry.

  • country-of-origin effect
  • provenance
  • fashion consumer

1. Introduction

The fashion industry is having trouble transcending the scandals that have haunted it. Indeed, years after the collapse of the Rana Plaza factory in 2013, there is a renewed level of scrutiny as several brands have been incriminated for their involvement with forced labour stemming from the 2020 Uyghur crisis [1][2]. For Millet [3], the clothes made in these factories are tainted by a capitalist system, where productive frenzy prevails over the fate of workers. These industrial scandals had an impact on consumers’ perception of brands. The scandals led consumers to have an increased informational expectation for knowledge regarding the COOs involved in the manufacturing of the fashion products they buy [4].
Research on communication regarding clothing’s origin essentially focuses on the “made in” label, which indicates the country where the product is assembled [5][6][7]. Targeting the last substantial processing or labour resulting in the manufacturing of the product, the mention of the “made in”, framed by the EU non-preferential rules of origin, only puts emphasis on the country of the products’ final assembly. However, a garment is an “hybrid product”, involving several processing stages and multiple related suppliers dispatched internationally [3][8][9]. The United Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) distinguishes four main steps in production, from raw materials to the final garment, referred as “tiers”: Tier 1 corresponds to the final product’s manufacturing and assembly, Tier 2 to materials manufacturing, Tier 3 to raw material processing, and Tier 4 to raw material agriculture, farming, or extraction [10].
The study conducted by Insch and McBride [6] demonstrated that the listing of COOs involved in the production of a good went on to influence consumers’ evaluation of the product. In addition, upcoming regulations have been announced with stringent requirements on consumer information. Most notably, a recent binding decree (n°2022-748) of the Anti-Waste and Circular Economy (AGEC) law in France has compelled the listing of COOs for importers and marketers of certain products from January 1st 2023 [11]. This mandates disclosure of the geographic location of the products’ assembly, the fabric’s weaving, as well as the dyeing and finishing stages. However, there is still a lot of information that researchers do not know about the perception of COOs involved in the manufacture of hybrid products, such as fashion goods. In fact, “there may be a differing COO effect in the case of fashion or style-related products as opposed to more generic or purely functional products” [6] (p. 263). For example, the effect of country-of-design on consumers’ perception of quality is greater in the case of fashion products [6]. However, in reaction to increasing transparency expectations, some authors have also called attention to the abundant supply of COO information. Ospital et al. [12] advised that data restitution adapted to consumers’ profiles is key. Nevertheless, they suggested that defining a standard list of data that can be collected and communicated while taking into account fashion brands’ positioning and consumers’ profile remains an important challenge.

2. From “Made in” to COOs Polysemic Concept

Consumer studies on COOs published in the 1980s distinguished between domestic and imported products [13][14]. This forged two major preconceptions that researchers still have today. The first is the idea that the COO is synonymous with “made in”. The second is that there are two types of products: products from one’s own country, or from countries with close socio-cultural relationships, and the “others”. However, as Garg and Mathew [5] suggested “the concept of COO [...] has transformed into a multidimensional concept that encompasses several components, such as country of parts, manufacture, brand, and design” (p. 48). Indeed, the context of hyper globalisation has led to the proliferation of “hybrid products” processed in several countries of origin. In fact, it has become complex for consumers to understand information on COOs to evaluate products [7], especially since it will be even more complex in a context of 4.0 Industry, where the information will be made available for the brand and may be communicated to consumers [15]. Indeed, each stage of processing has different effects on consumers’ perception. For example, “Country of manufacturing may be associated with serviceability, workmanship, and economy; country of assembly may affect consumers’ evaluations of products on functional aspects (e.g., performance and reliability); whereas, country of design may influence products’ image, aesthetics, and other aspects” [16] (p. 232).

3. COOs Effects and Influence on Consumers

As a hybrid product, clothing has been included into the broader phenomenon of globalisation. The information on its fragmented and delocalized production has repercussions for the perception and behaviour of consumers. Stolz [9] defined this COOs effect as “the influence of a product’s origin on the way consumers perceive this product and how the origination information affects the buying decision process” (p. 102). The first mechanism of influence is normative. It is the ethnocentrism of consumers [17][18][19], or the belief in the superiority of an ethnic or cultural group over another [20], especially for so-called developed countries [21]. The second mechanism of influence is cognitive. It is the set of “mythologies” and stereotypes associated with COOs [22] (p. 232). This ethnocentrism of the consumers has been studied in national contexts across different regions of the world, and especially in European countries associated with a certain know-how, such as Italy [23]. The third and last mechanism of influence is affective and is defined as the “country animosity”, i.e., the fact that “consumers may avoid/reject products from a specific COO because of their disapproval of the foreign country’s environmental policies and practices” [24] (p. 168). These influence mechanisms increase for foreign products and “can lead to a reduced willingness to buy, boycotts, or other forms of anti-consumption” [25] (p. 1165).

4. COO Information and Communication to Consumers

With these factors in mind, Martin et al. [26] recommended that communication campaigns should be developed to break these negative stereotypes regarding quality [27]. To this end, it is necessary to create a bond of familiarity between consumers and the product or brand. Indeed, if consumers are more familiar with the product or the brand, there are fewer risks that the COOs involved in the product’s manufacturing will be perceived negatively [28][29]. Thus, some studies proposed creating a link by communicating the country-of-design (COD) and/or the country-of-brand (COB), since they both would make it possible to suggest added values as a simulacrum of these countries of origin [17][30]. In addition, although most people have enough knowledge to identify the country of manufacturing, it is recommended “that symbols should be used to a greater extent because it would reduce language barriers that may be experienced by consumers” [31] (p. 23). Especially, in the context of globalisation, providing information on geographical origin is no longer unique and is now confusing [7]. In light of the existing contradictions between previous studies, Insch and McBride [6] recommended advancing research in this area to address the lack of knowledge regarding COO construction and its generalizability across different product situations.

This entry is adapted from the peer-reviewed paper 10.3390/su15086927

References

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