Sourcing Journal Radio

As the denim industry places greater emphasis on circularity and the full life cycle of a product, AGI Denim is emerging as a key player driving change through innovation and intentional growth. To build a more sustainable supply chain and manufacturing model, the Pakistan-based vertical denim manufacturer is investing in advanced technologies that deliver more with less. This includes Smartec Dyeing Machine that reduces water usage simultaneously enhancing color vibrancy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is there anything more quintessentially American than blue jeans? Denim is so entrenched in the American psyche that it can be easy to forget that most jeans have been manufactured overseas for decades. To explore this disconnect—and to dive into the trials and tribulations of bringing domestic denim manufacturing back—Sourcing Journal themed its Summer SJ Denim edition the “Made in America” Issue. In this episode, Angela Velasquez, Sourcing Journal's executive editor and denim editor, chats with Lauren Parker, director, Fairchild Studio, about what Made in America denim really means. Read the report HERE. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the political and economic landscapes shift amid President Donald Trump’s escalating trade war, the fashion industry—like many others—is bracing for impact by tightening supply chain operations. To help navigate these disruptions, Computer Generated Solutions (CGS) released the 10th annual edition of its BlueCherry State of Supply Chain and Technology Report. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Just as cotton sustainability starts at the farm, leather sustainability starts at the ranch. Leather is a natural byproduct of food production, but cattle farming accounts for about 40 percent of all GHG emissions from agri-food systems, not to mention deforestation when not managed correctly. That’s why the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is teaming up with companies that utilize leather to support the newly launched Deforestation-Free Leather Fund, transform leather supply chains and protect the world’s forests. Listen to the podcast with Fernando Bellese, senior director for beef and leather supply chains, WWF, and Lauren Parker, director, Fairchild Studio to learn: How the Fund is educating brands about leather’s role in deforestation and providing solutions. Why it so important to preserve tropical forests. Why companies must work together to address deforestation and promote more transparent supply chains. How the Fund is helping to scale leather traceability systems. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Material innovation takes two forms. You can develop new alt materials that have less impact on the planet, or you can take existing fossil fuel-based materials and develop circular recycling systems to keep them out of landfills and use them again. Both innovations are exciting and both are hard. The good news is that VC funding in the green space has bounced back, albeit with a more selective approach that shifts the investing vibe from "gold rush" to "growth state." In this episode, Alex Harrell, Sourcing Journal's sustainability and innovation reporter, chats with Lauren Parker, director, Fairchild Studio, about what's new and what's next in material innovation, what "innovation tourism" is and why it's slowing progress. Download the Material Innovation Report: https://bit.ly/4lHK5DU Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Shapewear has typically been associated with synthetic fibers, but a recent launch from Spanx is proving natural materials have a place in the category.Based on consumer feedback, Spanx set out to create shaping garments using natural fibers, and it landed on long-staple Supima cotton as the base material. The SpanxShape Invisible Supima Cotton collection combines Supima’s natural inherent benefits with targeted stretch and hold from Lycra FitSense. The result is lightweight, breathable, moisture-wicking innerwear that gives the shaping Spanx is known for. In this episode, Spanx's chief design officer Pascale Gueracague and Supima's vice president, marketing and promotions Buxton Midyette talk with Sarah Jones, senior editor, strategic content at Sourcing Journal, about what makes Supima a fit for shapewear and how this collection delivers the "Spanx effect." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Big Business is rapidly embracing technology, but at what cost? Can robots and AI can make the fashion industry smarter, faster, better—without sacrificing humanity? Sourcing Journal's business reporter/tech editor Meghan Hall chats with Lauren Parker, director, Fairchild Studio, about the symbiotic relationship between man and machine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Diversification has quickly turned from “nice to have” to “need to have” as an escalating trade war between the U.S. and China has made the industry’s number one manufacturing destination a more expensive choice. In a challenging climate, brands are also becoming more risk averse, and a broader sourcing map that goes beyond the “China plus one” strategy helps to hedge against headwinds. “The importance of diversification—and not just to one other area plus China, but to many other geographical locations in several different continents, potentially—is seen as an importance and an urgency, regardless of the logistical frictions that may exist in pursuing such a strategy,” said Yossi Nasser, CEO of Gelmart, which manufactures intimates for major retailers like Target and Walmart. Although it also has operations in China, Gelmart is leaning on its factories in the Philippines amid ongoing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing. More than just a means to circumvent a tariff spat, Nasser noted the Philippines is a sourcing destination that should be on the industry’s radar. Listen to this episode to hear Nasser speak with Sourcing Journal's sourcing and labor editor Jasmin Malik Chua about what makes the Philippines a solid choice for garment production and how Gelmart is strategizing for long-term resilience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Talk about tariffs has been filling newspapers, websites, airwaves, boardrooms, factory floors and dinner tables for a while, but reality is just starting to sink in now. What are the true costs of tariffs, and who is going to be paying for them? Ian Fredericks, president and CEO of Hilco Consumer-Retail, chats with Lauren Parker, director, Fairchild Studio, about how tariff worries — real and perceived — are affecting shopping behavior, inventory and pricing, and what companies can do to prepare. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Geopolitical upheaval. Tariffs and trade wars. Inflation. Sustainability concerns. Changing buying patterns. As the list of disruptions and demands that the industry must consider when sourcing goods keeps growing, one strategy has become a top priority: diversification. “The retailers and the brands are looking for multiple countries of origin and mitigating their risk by making sure that their productions are spread across different regions,” said Masooma Zaidi, vice president sales and merchandising at manufacturer Interloop Limited. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Upscale legacy brands have a challenge when it comes to technology. How do you blend future-facing digital strategy with the timelessness of luxury? How do you balance exclusivity with digital-first accessibility? And how do you integrate omnichannel innovation into personalization, as well as the in-store experience? Here, Lauren Parker, director of Fairchild Studio, chats with Yang Lu, the chief information officer at Tapestry, to learn how Tapestry is approaching luxury in this digital age. Lu explained the company’s test-and-learn digital strategy to meet customers where they are, and why “iteration is the new perfection.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The political will toward sustainability is constantly shifting, and with the official exit from the Paris Agreement and a ‘drill, baby drill’ fossil fuel mentality, things are moving in another direction. This has created a climate of uncertainty for eco-minded businesses seeking support from government sustainability requirements. That said, the underlying drivers of a sustainable future—innovation, tapping into cost-efficient renewable energy, and consumer demand for ethical practices—remain intact. In other words, eco-champions are a tenacious bunch. Sourcing Journal has dug deep into the situation with its State of the Industry Sustainability Report, released the same day as our Sustainability Summit in New York. Here, Lauren Parker, director of Fairchild Studio, chats with two editors who wrote most of the report: Jasmin Malik Chua, SJ’s Sourcing and labor editor, and Alex Harrell, SJ’s Sustainability & Innovation Reporter. To download SJ's Sustainability Report, click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Lately, tariffs have become the most powerful word in the world. They are moving stock markets, upending longstanding international trade agreements, and evoking lots of confusion—and emotion—across industries. Sourcing Journal recently released its annual State of the Industry Sourcing Report, and one thing is clear: tariff turmoil has gripped the fashion sector. In this episode, Lauren Parker, director of Fairchild Studio, chats with Kate Nishimura, Sourcing Journal’s features editor and resident tariff expert, on where things stand now, where they might go, and all the implications in between. To download SJ's Sourcing Report, click here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Roughly half the world’s zippers and fasteners come from YKK, totaling an astounding 10 billion zippers in 2024 alone. And at such scale, these little parts have big impacts. That’s why YKK has doubled down on sustainability, from recycled materials and zipper slides that can carry data-carrying digital product passports (DPPs) to new material innovations that allow for circularity. In this episode, Lauren Parker, director, SJ and Fairchild Studios, chats with Brian La Plante, senior manager, sustainability, of the Japan-based YKK Fastening Products Group, about addressing sustainability's "full hierarchy of circularity." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the mere year and a half since it launched, Reju has already made substantial progress on its path toward scaling recycled polyester production. Last October, the textile-to-textile regeneration firm opened its first operational plant that will start deliveries this year, and it is not stopping there. With textile industry experts at the helm—including former Under Armour chief executive Patrik Frisk as CEO—and IBM-developed technology underpinning its chemistry, Reju is on a mission to fully redesign fashion systems for circularity. Together with partners such as Goodwill, it is taking a value chain-wide approach to accelerate the textile recycling rate from where it currently stands at 1 percent. In this episode, Frisk speaks with Sourcing Journal's sourcing and labor editor Jasmin Malik Chua about Reju's focus on textile-to-textile recycling solutions and why collaboration is critical to driving circularity forward. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Change, obstacles and opportunity sum up the state of supply chains in 2025. And while logistics are tumultuous under the best of circumstances—let alone during fiery geopolitics and a new president determined to remake the trade landscape—there's plenty of optimism and energy on many fronts. Sourcing Journal just released its 2025 Logistics Report, which brings you the latest logistics news, from automation to mergers and acquisitions. In this episode, Lauren Parker, director of Fairchild Studio, chats with Glenn Taylor, SJ's Logistics Editor, on the report's highlights and overall industry insights. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Listen to this podcast to discover what the fashion industry is up against in 2025 and how companies can effectively navigate an unpredictable supply chain landscape. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How effectively can you verify your sustainability claims and results? This question is becoming more imperative as the industry is now being held to higher standards to report and communicate their environmental impact. To meet these demands, companies need data. In 2020, the U.S. Cotton TrustProtocol was developed to collect and share farm-level data on six key metrics, providing participating brands and retailers with more insights into the profile of their cotton. “Those metrics are the overarching umbrella that help explain what's being done at the field level to an industry that's consuming that cotton,” said Daren Abney, executive director of the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. The other purpose of data collection is measuring progress. Setting goals, gathering baseline figures and then benchmarking against them lets the industry know how far it has come, and what gaps it still must close. “It's not just about collecting data,” said Deepika Mishra, Ph.D., standards and data lead consultant at the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol. “It's about using it to drive real, measurable improvements in the sustainability of cotton production.” Listen to Abney and Mishra in conversation with Jasmin Malik Chua, sourcing and labor editor at Sourcing Journal, to learn how the U.S. Cotton Trust Protocol is using traceability to give brands a full picture of the cotton supply chain. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As a new administration takes office in the United States, the retail industry is watching what will happen with trade. While tariffs could hike the import price of finished goods, they would also have an impact on the cotton market. Any trade conflicts with China could disrupt a key export destination for U.S.-grown cotton if China pushes back with its own tariffs, as it did in 2018. “China just didn't take our increases…sitting down,” said Jon Devine, senior economist at Cotton Incorporated. “They did have some retaliation, and one of the first products to be hit in terms of the U.S. trade to China was cotton.” Listen to this chat between Devine and Alex Harrell, staff writer at Sourcing Journal, to hear more about what to watch for in the next Trump term and whether a recession is likely in the next year. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sourcing Journal turned 15 this year, so there was a lot to celebrate at its annual Fall Summit held in New York this November. The event tackled trade issues and industry turmoil, not to mention Trump's proposed tariffs, which were particularly top of mind as the event occurred just days after the election. In this episode, Lauren Parker, Director of SJ and Fairchild Studios chats with Peter Sadera, Sourcing Journal's editor in chief, about event highlights and its accompanying Companion Report, which recaps the event and also "continues the conversation." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices