About the interview
When studying global textile and apparel sourcing, our students often focus on fashion brands and retailers—but what happens on the manufacturing side is equally critical. From tariffs and trade policies to sustainability requirements, geopolitical tensions, and technological disruption, manufacturers face complex challenges that shape the global textile and apparel supply chain.
We are fortunate to have Dr. Christian Schindler, Director General of the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF), join us for this interview. He shared invaluable insights into how manufacturers are navigating today’s dynamic environment, including:
- How rising tariffs and trade policy uncertainty are affecting textile and apparel manufacturers
- China’s evolving role in the textile and apparel trade, and the implications for other critical textile and apparel supplying countries
- The impact of geopolitical tensions on textile and apparel production, trade patterns, and manufacturers’ risk management strategies
- Near-shoring: its prospects, limitations, and the factors influencing regional textile and apparel manufacturing shifts
- Sustainability, recycling, and circularity: whether textile and apparel manufacturers see these trends as compliance, opportunity, or burden
- How purchasing practices by fashion brands influence labor standards, compliance, and responsible sourcing at the factory level
- The growing role of AI and digitalization in textile and apparel production, and the potential impacts on workers and supply chain efficiency
About Dr. Christian Schindler
Dr. Christian P. Schindler serves as Director General of the International Textile Manufacturers Federation (ITMF), the global federation representing the full textile value chain from fibres to finished apparel and home textiles. He leads ITMF’s strategy, research publications, industry conferences, and global dialogues on trade, sustainability, and technological change in textiles.
About Emilie Delaye (moderator)
Emilie Delaye is a master’s student & graduate instructor in Fashion and Apparel Studies at the University of Delaware, with a specific interest in supply chain, global sourcing, and sustainability. Emilie is also a member of the Fair Labor Association (FLA) 2025-2026 Student Committee and the University of Delaware President’s Student Advisory Council.
FASH455 Global Apparel & Textile Trade and Sourcing 
One key concept from class that relates to this interview is the restructuring of US textile and apparel companies. In class we talked about how US apparel brands have moved away from production and focus more on design and marketing, while textile production has become more technology and capital driven. In the interview, Dr. Schindler basically shows how messy and complex things are for manufacturers right now. With tariffs, political tensions, and constant changes in sourcing, companies are not just relying on one country anymore. They are spreading production across different regions to manage risk. That lines up with what we learned about supply chains being flexible instead of fixed. He also mentions sustainability and AI, which makes it clear the industry is shifting toward more innovation, not just low cost production. From a managerial perspective, it feels like sourcing decisions are way more complicated now. It is not just about cost, but also stability and long term risk. I wonder if this will push brands to build more regional supply chains instead of depending so much on one place.
A key concept from class that relates to this blog post is sourcing criteria. In class, we learned that companies don’t just choose suppliers based on sustainability or location, but also on cost, scalability, and reliability. These factors usually matter more when firms are making real time decisions, and in this blog post, textile-to-textile recycling sounds promising, but it doesn’t fully meet those sourcing criteria yet. The post explains that the technology is still expensive and not scaled, so recycled fibers struggle to compete with cheaper regular materials. Even if it’s more sustainable, companies may avoid it if it increases costs or risk. That helps explain why adoption is still slow. From a managerial perspective, firms will probably wait until recycling becomes more cost competitive before fully switching over. This means better technology will be key. I also think policy support could matter, since cost alone might not push companies to change.
One key concept from our class that relates to this blog post is global supply chain risk management and sourcing diversification. In class, we talked about how brands need to spread production across different countries to manage risks like tariffs, political issues, and demand shifts, which helps them stay flexible. In the interview, Dr. Schindler explains how manufacturers are dealing with these exact challenges, including rising trade tensions, shifting sourcing away from China, and the push toward nearshoring. However, he also makes it clear that no single region can fully replace global supply chains due to limits in cost and production capacity. This really shows how diversification isn’t just a strategy, it’s becoming necessary. Fashion companies should definitely focus on building more flexible sourcing networks instead of depending too much on one region, while also thinking about whether future investment should go toward strengthening regional supply chains or continuing to rely on global ones.
One key concept from our class that relates to this video is the stage of development in the textile complex. In class, we learned that textile manufacturing is capital and technology intensive, while apparel is labor intensive and often offshore. Countries in post-maturity stages focus more on textiles and offshore apparel, which helps explain why the U.S. textile industry has shrunk in apparel but stays strong in high-tech textile production. In the video, the textile-to-textile recycling technology shows how the U.S. could reclaim its place in high value textile manufacturing. Chemical recycling of polyester needs advanced machinery, intellectual property and skilled labor and classic features of capital-intensive textiles. Apparel production would likely remain global, since making clothing is still labor-intensive and cost-sensitive. It seems like U.S. textile companies could strategically invest in recycling plants to capture this high-tech part of the supply chain, while partnering globally for garments. I’m curious: will consumers value “Made with recycled U.S. waste” as much as “Made in USA,” and how might that influence brand strategies?
One key concept from class that relates to this interview is global sourcing strategy and supply chain risk. In class, we learned that companies spread production across different countries to balance cost, risk, and efficiency instead of relying on just one place.
In the interview, Dr. Christian Schindler explains how manufacturers are adjusting to tariffs, shifting trade policies, and policy uncertainty, all of which make long-term planning more difficult from a manufacturing perspective. He also highlights how trade agreements are actively shaping the textile and apparel industry around the world by influencing where companies choose to produce. While China is still important, many companies are adding other countries to reduce risk.
Overall, this shows that companies need to stay flexible. Instead of depending on one country, they should use multiple sourcing locations so they can better handle changes like tariffs, trade agreements, policy uncertainty, and supply chain risk.
One key concept from our class that relates to this interview is sourcing criteria, the set of factors companies evaluate when selecting manuufacturing companies, including cost, qaulity, lead time, compliance, and polital risk. In class we dissucessed that brands must weigh these options differently depending on their business model.
In this interview. Dr. Schindler explains how geopolitical tensions and unstable tariffs are making manufacturers and brands revaluate their sourcing criteria priorities, particularly shifting away from just cost alone toward factors like political stability and strong supply chains. This shows adjustments where risk management is becoming as important as price competitiveness.
A managerial implication is that companies should standardize a larger criteria sourcing framework that accounts for geopolitical and policy risk, rather than treating those as secondary concerns.
One key concept from class that relates to this interview is sourcing criteria and global supply chain decision-making. This refers to how companies choose where and how to produce goods based on factors like cost, speed, labor conditions, and trade regulations. Firms must be able to balance efficiency with ethical and reputational considerations when selecting suppliers. In the video, it is brought up how fashion brands are rethinking their production strategies because of a shift in consumer expectations and operational-related pressures. Brands are not just focused on low costs anymore, but also on things like sustainability and transparency. Some brands are moving production closer to home or making their supply chains more flexible, so that they can react faster to trends. This shows how sourcing decisions affect how customers view a brand. A takeaway for managers is that sourcing is more than just saving money – it also affects a brand’s image. Using more ethical or local modes of production can bring in more customers, especially younger ones. However, this can be costly, so brands will need to be transparent and explain why their product costs more. This raises the issues of companies being able to find the perfect balance between staying affordable and ethically responsible.
One key concept from our class that relates to this blog post is risk taking in the global supply chain. The risk of being a company taking part in global trade comes with many unknown challenges due to uncertainties with countries.
In class, we’ve discussed that having a good relationship within the global trade chain is important because then when you want a product made in a certain way or time, the supplier is more likely to do it for you if you have a good relationship with them. When we did that in class activity and other people acted at the supplier, factory, and company, we saw how sometimes companies aren’t willing to be flexible with the factory workers with causes the products to be made worse or take longer to make.
In the video it talks about how things like bad purchasing practice can affect the productivity of your supplier. “It’s a well-known fact that bad purchasing practices have a super negative impact on social compliance of textile and apparel companies around the world.”
Going forward, we can further explore better ways in treating companies and factory workers. Even like having to pay more to suppliers to pay their factory workers better, can encourage those workers to want to work and make have better productivity. am curious Fashion companies may want to raise the prices in their products to help out the people making your products.
A key course concept from our class that we learned in March is sourcing criteria, which can be defined as the set of factors companies used to evaluate and select suppliers, and production locations. Some of these factors would normally include cost, speed to market, quality, compliance with labor and environmental standards, and risk exposure. The evaluations that these companies make of these factors helps them to make strategic decisions in complex supply chains. When applying this concept to Dr. Schindler‘s insights, it is clear that the manufacturer has to continuously reassess their sourcing due to tariffs, politics, and sustainability issues while also prioritizing speed, cost, and reduced risk to workers. This sourcing criteria has led brands to focus on more ethical sourcing for customer satisfaction in sustainability and a healthy environment for the factory workers by increasing production cost. Another solution to this would be diversifying sourcing locations to manage the uncertainty of political relations to certain locations and tariffs. A question that can continue this conversation would be, how will sourcing criteria change in the future as sustainability becomes a non-negotiable requirement instead of a competitive advantage of competing companies?
One key concept from this interview is sourcing criteria which is how brands evaluate and choose suppliers based on factors like cost, speed, flexibility, risk and compliance. Sourcing decisions go way beyond low cost and also have to do with geopolitics and sustainability. This concept explains how manufacturers try to mitigate uncertainty and tariffs. DR Schindler highlights that companies are no longer sourcing solely based on cost, they have begun diversifying markets and nearshoring. There’s a pivot toward balancing cost with supply chain security. A managerial implication is diversifying manufacturing. Relying heavily on just one country increases vulnerability to tariffs and geopolitical issues. Companies should be balancing their sourcing strategy even if it raises costs slightly. Diversification will improve responsiveness and reduce supply chain shock in an uncertain world.