Singapore : Fashion Majors Choose Singapore For Quality Production

It is costing top international fashion labels more to produce their apparel here, but that has not stopped them because manufacturers here are able to comply with their design demands.

These requests range from making a shirt feel soft to sewing a skirt with a bias cut.

Textile and Fashion Federation president Edward Ang said: 'Factories here usually make higher-end goods, which can be sold for a higher price. This makes it possible for Singapore to have higher-cost labour.'

Such know-how is one reason American brand Eddie Bauer, for example, is willing to pay 10 to 15 per cent more to make its smart-casual outdoor wear for adults here, rather than in places like Vietnam and Indonesia.

Madam Candida Chung, an account manager with the Singapore arm of Otto Versand, the German company that owns the label, said: 'Some countries don't know how to create the correct feel.

'When we want the clothes to have a soft feel, they make them very harsh. Or if they do manage to make them soft, the result is very hairy...'

At least five other top labels, including DKNY, Gap and Fila, also make some of their clothes here.

Italian label Fila makes 4.5 per cent of all the sportswear it produces in Singapore. Another 3.5 per cent is being produced by Singapore-owned factories overseas.

The result: The garment-making sector, one of Singapore's oldest industries, is booming.

In 2001, Singapore-owned textile and apparel companies exported $4.2 billion worth of items, with their factories in 20 countries responsible for about three-quarters of that.

That's a big jump from 1999, when these overseas outlets produced only about $1 billion worth of goods.

Another major plus, say the labels, is the 'resourceful businessmen' here who are 'always coming up with ways to do things better and cheaper'.

But though there are about 100 garment-making firms here, only a few big ones are in the export market and most in this group do not sell their apparel in Singapore.

Shoppers will not find Gap, Banana Republic and Old Navy's clothes sold in Singapore, although a good many of their T-shirts, dresses and trousers are sewn here.

All three labels belong to American firm Gap Inc, which did not want to reveal how much apparel it produced here and why it was not selling in Singapore.

Eddie Bauer does not have outlets in the region as it finds the South-east Asian market too small, said Madam Chung.