Ralph Lauren and the Council of Fashion Designers of America is widening its financial commitment to domestic apparel production as new economic data underscore just how fragile American fashion manufacturing has become.
This week, the CFDA announced two new grant programs aimed at stabilizing and modernizing U.S.-based fashion manufacturing, extending its support well beyond New York City for the first time. The move comes as fresh analysis from Deloitte shows that apparel and textile manufacturing remain among the fastest-declining segments of the U.S. industrial economy, even as policymakers push to reshore production.
The first initiative, the CFDA x NY Forward Grant Fund, is a city-focused effort developed with funding from the New York State Department of State and Ralph Lauren Corp. It will provide partially matching grants to designers and manufacturers operating in New York City’s Garment District, an area that has steadily lost factories and skilled labor over the past two decades…