There’s a Good Chance Your Favorite Clothes Are Made by a Company You've Never Heard Of
- Korean producers look to boost margins as OEM business slumps
- Companies have factories around the world making apparel
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Hansae Co. has a favorite boast: One in every three Americans is wearing its clothes. If you’ve never heard of it, or Sae-A Trading Co., or Youngone Corp., you’d know them better by the labels they stitch on: Zara, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nike, Patagonia and many more.
They are the South Korean companies that are among a handful in Asia who have dominated the world of apparel for years, making shoes and shirts in South Korea in the 1980s and then moving factories to China and on to other developing countries as labor costs rose. After three decades of making clothes for others, they want their own brands.