A year on from the fires that devastated Los Angeles, Vogue Business takes stock of fashion’s recovery and rebuilding efforts as part of our series, Refashioning LA, assessing where the city’s fashion and apparel industry is headed in 2026.
Carolina Crespo, founder of Everybody.World, never used to lock the gates at her office-meets-factory space in Vernon, Los Angeles. Members of the local manufacturing community would come and go on the daily.
When Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids spread throughout LA — targeting areas including the garment industry — in June, things shifted. “All of our gates were closed. Unless you had an appointment, you couldn’t come in,” she says. One manufacturer described it as having a “manhunt feel”. Crespo says that since the summer’s peak, raids have slowed down, but she doesn’t see the local industry fully relaxing anytime soon. “You never know when it’s going to spike.”
Last year, the LA manufacturing industry was thrown into chaos when the raids began. ICE agents swarmed the city, targeting areas known to have large volumes of immigrants. This resulted in hundreds of arrests across the city, and a number of detainees were subsequently deported. Some families of detained garment workers were unable to locate their family members, Daisy Gonzalez, campaigns director at LA-based non-profit Garment Worker Center, told Vogue Business at the time. That summer, protests ensued, and, in response, President Donald Trump deployed 4,000 national guard troops and 700 marines to Los Angeles, without state consent.
It stoked fear and uncertainty in an industry already undergoing a transformative year. The raids happened when ‘Made in LA’ was having a moment as part of the broader ‘Made in America’ movement, with brands, fearful of tariff regulations, exploring reshoring production. “What’s happening in international manufacturing right now, a lot of retailers and wholesalers are challenged with the tariff situation, it’s super volatile,” says Mari Popovics, VP of production at LA-based activewear label Set Active. “It’s really difficult to place overseas orders, we have to place six to eight months in advance.”
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The raids also came six months after the wildfires that rocked the city. Though, the Palisades and Eaton fires didn’t reach downtown or further south, where most LA manufacturing takes place. “It’s as if production wasn’t hard enough,” says Nina Garduno, founder of local basics brand Free City, who also has a number of small sewing factories. With tariffs, the fires and the ICE raids, she’s impressed by the industry’s grit. “It’s really something to watch these people get through all of these dynamics that have been happening, with this much courage.”
Now, with an uptick in interest from non-LA-native brands and corporations, the industry is currently navigating how to accommodate this desire for domestic manufacturing while protecting its workers and community.
State of the industry
Many LA-founded luxury brands have long committed to producing at least a subset of their items in Los Angeles. Chrome Hearts manufactures the bulk of its products in the city. Amiri, founded by Mike Amiri in LA in 2014, still makes jeans and basics locally, while Dôen also manufactures a subset of its products in LA. Other LA-based brands like Everybody.World and Free City, which specialize in basics, make everything close to home. Chris Black’s new brand Hanover is all made in LA, too.
Those working in the industry agree it’s changed dramatically since the ’80s, when the local industry was less specialized in basic apparel (cotton and denim). “My dad was making coats,” Crespo says. For the past 20 years, the LA manufacturing industry has been shrinking, says Pasha Farmanara, who runs cut-and-sew factory Pasha California. “The people who’ve been around for 30 years are used to it shrinking really fast,” he says. “But when you look at all the stats in the last five years, the amount of production has hit a bottom and plateaued. So our industry is not shrinking anymore.”
Brands are now realizing they need at least a foot in the US, Farmanara says. “A lot of people’s equations didn’t account for the risk of manufacturing overseas. And now that it has happened, everyone s equations have changed,” he says. Farmanara’s family business supplies fabrics to manufacturers, and he’s noticing a shift in larger brands not native to LA establishing at least a small presence in the city. Irys Kornbluth, co-founder of recycled materials manufacturer Everywhere Apparel, which has worked with brands including Coach, has noted a similar shift in brands looking to reshore; she recently worked with Coach on an LA-made Coachtopia drop. Crespo, meanwhile, notes an uptick in interest from major brands like Nike. “Especially with the tariffs happening, they have no other choice but to look in their backyard,” she says.
This rise in demand is why the ICE raids are so antithetical to the goal of reshoring production. “It’s not like my daughter’s going to be like, ‘Yeah, I want to be a sewer,’ or anything like that. This is a very niche industry,” Crespo says. There are only a few machines left that are able to do ABI finish for denim, for instance, she continues — when you find someone who can work the machines, you save their number.
“The experience of the people working in apparel is so critical, especially when it comes to a quality standpoint,” Kornbluth says. “People who have worked in this industry for 20, 30 years, it’s so valuable to have their knowledge and experience. They really understand the quality that fashion brands need to hit — otherwise, it’s a very, very difficult market.”
Despite last year’s hurdles, Popovics expects 2026 to mark a turning point for the city’s manufacturing. She anticipates more brands investing in local production, and, in turn, expects LA factories to expand their current offerings by dusting off long-dormant machines. “I think we’re right on the crescendo of another explosion with people getting back in due to what’s happening and [the desire to] stay consistent with the tariffs.”
Community feel
With Crespo and Farmanara — the latter of whom founded his cut-and-sew factory after working at Crespo’s Everybody.World — we shuttle from the Everybody.World HQ to the various factories it works with. Nobody bats an eyelid as Crespo enters and wanders around the space, bar a quick hello and introduction (to me). Nothing is more than a few minutes’ drive away, making IRL check-ins easy for Crespo if need be. “Carolina is famous for calling the specific worker,” Farmanara says. “I have all of their numbers,” Crespo adds. If they don’t pick up, she’ll drive the couple miles to see what’s going on with her order.
This is the beauty of producing in LA, Popovics says. She recalls her time at Goop (where she worked for seven years prior to Set): “If I had a problem, or if GP [Gwyneth Paltrow] needed a sample, I’d get in the car, drive downtown and I could just grab it.” It’s how designer Cleo Camp got her brand off the ground. Coming from the film industry, Camp already had a handle on the LA Garment District, she says. When working in the costume department, she’d take notes of every specialized place with phone numbers. “I really turned to the network that I had built in the costume industry, and those are the people who helped me make my first samples and helped me perfect my sewing,” she says. “It’s like this treasure trove of amazing people.”
This closeness also informs who Crespo works with. “I hate the places where they’re like, you need a meeting, you can’t come in. Why not? No, no, no. I literally come in whenever I want to — because [I want to] see what’s happening. How are they treating the employees? What’s going on behind closed doors? How is everyone working? If I can’t see that in real time, I don’t want to work with them,” she says. But those Crespo does work with, she’s dedicated to. “It’s making sure we’re surviving; my people are surviving. There are all these people around who we’re supporting,” she adds. “And in return, they support me as well.”
This was more evident than ever when the immigration raids hit Los Angeles last June, targeting the city’s garment industry (among others). “Everyone’s just trying to live the American dream,” Crespo says. “They just want to work and send money back to their families. That’s it. They’re some of the hardest working people that I’ve known.”
At the time, factory owners adjusted hours to accommodate workers who still needed to work; making factories look closed from the outside. They trained their employees on what to say, should ICE come knocking. Some called Ubers for workers to ensure they weren’t taking the bus.
Though things have cooled in the six-plus months since the peak of the raids, workers and factory owners alike are still reeling. “While there’s a lot of potentially positive momentum around reshoring, we’re not creating the right climate here to really foster long-term support for manufacturing,” Everywhere Apparel’s Kornbluth says.
A turning point
Los Angeles hasn’t always primarily produced denim and basics (though these were always the staples). Set Active’s Popovics recalls working for Laundry by Shelli Segal in the ’80s. “[She] made dresses and sportswear at a luxury level, and we made everything in LA, even hand beading,” she says, adding that LA factories used to do everything from woven pants to knit tops and sweaters. “And then as soon as China caught on, everybody left LA, for the most part.”
These days, she says, the city’s production is more specific. “There’s product that works well in LA and there’s product that really shouldn’t be in LA. Previously, there was margin for error because there wasn’t another option. Now, people are refining their business, things are a little bit more specialized.”
Right now, structured, woven or ultra-detailed pieces aren’t well suited to the LA industry, Popovics says, but she anticipates that this will change. “Some of these factories that are really specialized in just denim or knits, I think they will bring in crews that can sew the more complicated styles like woven pants and jackets,” she says. A few have already done so, Popovics adds. Camp makes her leather bags in LA: “I wouldn’t say that leather is necessarily a specialized product in LA, but I got so lucky.” She connected with her bag partners via relationships from her film days.
Popovics is also seeing factories revive knitting machinery that has been sitting idle for six or seven years. People held onto the machinery because it’s expensive, she explains (up to $1 million for a single machine), in hopes that brands would invest in LA once again. “I have a couple of people that I do sweaters with, who have reached out and said, ‘Hey, we’re starting up the machines, we’re doing sweaters again. Keep us in mind,” Popovics tells me. “That’s another great item in LA, because the lead time on sweaters is very long from overseas.”
There’s innovation happening, too, which can cause tension between the generations, says Farmanara, who himself is a fourth-generation textile manufacturer. At the dye house Everybody.World works with, a young owner has recently taken over from his father. “He’s a bit of a computer nerd,” Farmanara says, adding that he created a backend system to automate workflow.
Because the industry was shrinking for so long, it was survival of the fittest — meaning old-school talent, Farmanara says. Now, though, there’s some fresh blood coming in. “There’s a bit of a clash between the old people who are used to doing it their way and now these young people who are completely hitting it on a new angle,” he says. While Farmanara says he feels lucky to have both perspectives, things often get lost in translation. “There might be a talented young person with a good idea, but because they don’t know how to talk with the established people, they don’t get taken seriously. Meanwhile, they’ll have an amazing digital marketing strategy; they’d be able to move more goods than anybody.”
This shift is setting the industry up well for an uptick in brand interest — even if it’s a slow burn. One company Farmanara spoke with about producing hoodies said it made them in Pakistan for $16 per item. This would be the price of just the material in LA, he says. “There’s a lot of sticker shock. People forget that minimum wage in those countries is less than a dollar. Here, it’s $17.87.”
Though brands are expressing interest, Farmanara isn’t convinced that this will necessarily bring on a huge wave of LA manufacturing; they’ve heard it before, he says, and he’ll believe it when he sees it. If more brands do get in on local production, Farmanara hopes they’ll do so in a way that serves the community. “Are you going to buy the fabric from the fabric people that we know? Or is it going to be some siloed thing that doesn’t do much for the community?” he asks. “This doesn’t do much for the LA manufacturer.”
Popovics, though, is anticipating an uptick. It’ll be the luxury market that shifts into the city, she says. “The pricing is tough if you’re not a luxury or high-moderate brand, it’s really challenging,” she says. “But I think the small window that’s open now will get much bigger.” It’s a mix of the tariff situation, a desire to regulate order quantities and the perk of speedy turnaround times that’s driving brands to LA, she says. “It all aligned ahead of 2026.”
Despite reservations, Farmanara is optimistic. “We’re not a shirking industry anymore; we’re a stable industry. And if you’re adjusted to the new way of business, there’s nothing but opportunity,” he says. “You’re not going through that constant downsizing and people closing all around you. That has been happening for a very long time. It’s pretty much over.”
How LA Fashion Is Rebuilding Post-Fires
