Vertical integration doesn’t have to start with buying out an entire factory. For Los Angeles womenswear brand Buru, it can start with a single sewer.
Buru owns its own “microfactory” in Los Angeles where a team of 40 people including sewers and pattern makers assemble the brand’s small batch dresses, jackets and tops. The vertical integration allows for all sorts of benefits, including shorter production times, no delays in receiving products due to shipping problems and the chance to correct errors early, according to the brand’s founder and CEO, Morgan Hutchinson. But that team was built up slowly and without any outside funding.
“When we started the brand [a decade ago], we knew we wanted to do domestic production,” Hutchinson said. “In a lot of other countries, they have one-stop-shop manufacturers who do everything. But in the U.S., you’ve got a pattern maker here, a sample maker there. So we had to build our team ourselves.”
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