Rating Fashion Brands By Their Factories

Today I am going to be rating fashion brands based on which factories they use. There's this whole tier list situation going on. So I kind of built my own, put some of these brands here that you might know. We're going to rate them and then we're going to talk about which factories they use and why they might be good or might be terrible. So first up is Supreme, the ultimate streetwear brand. They actually produce all of their hoodies in Canada at Rupa Knitting Mills. And that's run by Amit, who's a really nice guy. Quality is really great, fleece is really nice. So I'm gonna put Supreme at a B tier because there's definitely gonna need to be room for some higher, some higher quality manufacturing. So next up we have Palace, the UK skating team. They produce their products, as far as I know, with Unavailable, which is this Vietnamese factory that does a bunch of other skating brands. And the quality is pretty good, uh, it's like pretty reliable stuff. And then they also do a lot of their jackets and polos and knits at Create Fashion Brand, which is a Portugal-based factory. And lastly, I know that they also produce at 11 After 11 in Vietnam. I'm not exactly sure which products they make there, but they do have some features on their website. For Palace, I would probably rate them between a C and a B tier. It'd be right around there. Obviously, the products that are collabs, so like the CP Company collab and, you know, the Gucci collab and all of that, those are produced in facilities, so I'm not going to consider those as part of the core brand. I'm talking about Pure Palace and Pure Supreme. Next up, the California surf company Stussy. Stussy produces in a bunch of different places. I actually know 5 of their factories. So there's Unavailable, there's Rupa Knitting, there's US Standard Apparel, and they're very good. They actually do some stuff for like Gallery Department and like Golf, the Tyler, the Creator brand as well. And then I know that they do some accessories at LHP China. And they do some other products at this factory called Texflor. So their production chain is actually super wide. But for Stussy, I would probably give them same as Palace. I'd say somewhere between B and C, I think is a reasonable ranking for them. Then we have BAPE. Now BAPE kind of pissed me off over the last few years. All of their product used to be made in Japan, and I really appreciated the brand when they were making product like that. And now Nigo kind of left. He's not part of the brand anymore. Manufacturing went downhill. Designs got really repetitive. They currently produce at, uh, Winner International, which is a Chinese-based factory. And I know the kind of work they do. The product is decent. It's not bad. They produce like the lower-tier stuff for Diesel. Uh, they've done like some stuff for like the New York Yankees and all of that. Bape, if this was pre-2012 or '13, I think it would be ranked as an A-tier, but in its current standing, it's a full-blown between C and D-tier. Purple Label North Face. So there's Purple Label North Face and there's regular North Face. Pretty straightforward. Purple Label North Face is made at Tadanit, which is a Japanese manufacturing facility based maybe an hour outside of Kurashiki. All of the Purple Label stuff, at least like the cut and sew t-shirts and stuff like that, I could tell you the quality is really good. I'm gonna put them probably between— I would say closer to an A tier. I think they're really, really up there. They've earned the status. And then for regular North Face, uh, I know that they do some stuff with Teijin and Solotex. Quality is pretty good, but the quality is also very varied throughout the North Face line. I would put North Face probably as a B tier. Off-White. This is a really finicky brand to rate. And the reason why is because Off-White makes their product look really good, but it's only actually good like 70% of the time. The other 30%, it's not very good. So what I mean by that is when I used to work at Essence, I saw their costing for their t-shirts. The t-shirt itself cost them at the time, and this was like 6 or 7 years ago, but all their Off-White t-shirts were like maybe $6 to produce, sometimes like $4. And I think what's actually expensive with Off-White t-shirts is all the hang tags that it comes with. It might even be more than the t-shirt itself or close to the cost. So it comes with like all those rubber, like paper, cardboard tags that makes the product look really beautiful. And that's a great way to get you to buy the t-shirt for $500. In reality, quality is so-so. However, there's some products that they do in Portugal at Create Fashion Brand. Those are better products. And all of like the high-end couture stuff, like the crazy, like varsity jackets and stuff like that, I would rank that probably between A-tier and B-tier. But meanwhile, their bathing suits and I think some of their underwear, if they even offer those products, I know are made at a factory called BRM in Italy that produces for Rick Owens and Philipp Plein and a few other brands. So if you're looking for swimwear, that factory is really good. Select products are great. Other products are okay. I mean, based on the price point that they're selling it at. Uh, so because of that, I'm going to put them between an A tier and a B tier. I think that's like the best suited place for them. Louis Vuitton. They work with Limonta, which is a fantastic fabric company that's in Italy, and they actually occupy their entire own village, which produces a lot of the key fabrics for all the big fashion houses that you know. But here's the issue, that's only on very select few products. And if you look at their handbags that they're charging like 2 grand, 3 grand for, they're made of a plastified leather and the quality is terrible. It does not wear well over time. It fades out. It's very cheap, especially for how much you're paying. So when it comes to Louis Vuitton, as crazy as it is, I'm going to rank them all the way down here. There's certain products, you get a silk scarf, things like that, that are nice quality, but there's a lot of products that are very disappointing for the price point. Burberry. Burberry, I have a lot of respect for. And actually I think that the collection that just came out, uh, within the last few months was one of their strongest collections with the new creative director. So Burberry product on average is made at very good factories. So I know, uh, Matsumaru in Japan, takes care of all of the cutting and sewing on their Heritage trench coat, which is their most popular product, the base trench coat. And I know that they charge him $350 just for the cutting and sewing. This is not including the fabrics, not including the buttons, trimmings, all of that other stuff. So in terms of value, when it comes to Burberry, I think it's really high. And at least the products that I know are very, very well made and the products I've seen in store are very well made. Value is there for a higher-end brand. So I'm actually going to rate Burberry A tier, maybe a little bit above A tier. Let's say it's like A tier, it's peeking into the S tier. Hermès, Léon Dore, interesting brands in terms of their quality. I would say on average it's pretty high. Uh, I have noticed that the price points are higher than the average streetwear brand. They produce at Unavailable, and then they also produce at Lever Style, which is the same place that Arcteryx produces at and a few other brands. So for that reason, I would probably rank them somewhere between an A-tier and a B-tier. Like, I think right here, if I just move this over a bit, I think that's right where Imeleon Doré sits. And for that matter, I would place Kith in the exact same spot, maybe just a touch higher. Ronnie Fieg is a product expert. I'll give it to him. Like the way he runs Kith, the way he offers ranges of dyeing. He's really opened up the streetwear industry for a lot of brands and he's paved the way. So I'll give Kith a bit of a higher ranking. In terms of their actual manufacturing, Kith also manufactures at Unavailable, but they also use a factory in China called Flexcone, and Flexcone does some really great product. And in terms of dyeing, it's very hard to beat Kith when it comes to streetwear dyeing outside of like the Japanese and Italian brand realms. So I think Kith deserves somewhere between the, you know, A tier and B tier, leaning more into the A tier. Yeezy and Yeezy Gap, both the same name, but because the other one is Yeezy Gap, drastically different quality. With Yeezy, very, very high price points. And I'm talking about all the old Yeezy seasons, the shearling jackets, all of that good stuff. I know that they were producing a lot of their fabrics for the hoodies and t-shirts at Tokisene. And Tokisene is among my favorite factories in the world. It's a Japanese-based factory that uses a Tsuri knitting machine that's only existing in 3 factories in the world, 2 in Japan, one of them is theirs. And the other ones in Germany. When it comes to the fabric qualities that Yeezy was putting in and even the construction on their garments, when I held them in hand, Yeezy, I would actually say, is all the way up here. It's right in between S-tier and A-tier. Very goated, very good quality on Yeezy. I have a lot of respect. So that was a very good quality brand. When it comes to Yeezy Gap, I think that they were just starting to figure their stuff out. And now I guess it's not really a brand anymore. But there was a lot of quality issues when I held the garment in hand. There was a lot of flaws, a lot of fraying, and I know that the price point is more reduced, but I would still say that the quality was not very good. And Yeezy Gap produces with this factory called D-Shang Group. I met them at Fashion World Tokyo. The quality is okay. The quality is okay on the garments. The hoodies are a little bit better, but there's still nothing to go crazy about. Yeezy Gap is C-tier, and it's only C-tier because of their retail price point. Um, so put them up here. If you want to see where more brands produce their products, I have all the factories listed, minimum order quantities, price ranges, and most importantly, a direct contact at the factory for a ton of different brands. And all of that is available on my Patreon, and the link is in the description. And now we get into the Japanese brands section of this video. Capital. I'm wearing Capital right now. This hat is from Capital. I like Capital's quality a lot. Their manufacturing processes are pretty ridiculous. Um, every time you buy a Capital product, it probably went through like 3 or 4, at least, different manufacturing facilities to get produced. And this is the process for pretty much any Japanese brand. In Japan, each factory is very small and focuses on one very specific process in clothing production. When it comes to capital, I know they use Kojima Senshoku to do all of their mud dyeing, which is actually the same factory that Visvim uses for their mud dyeing as well. Um, and the quality at that factory, absolutely insane. I know that they also use Tokiseni, the same factory that did Yeezy, um, to do some of their products. Uh, quality, obviously very, very elevated from a factory like that, but they have some products that aren't as good. Like their trucker hats are made in China, the foam ones. They're pretty cheap. They need to mass produce them. It's the cheapest item in their catalog. I understand why it's like that, but in terms of on average quality, it's very high. The price point you're paying It's very reasonable. And just a little tip, if you're buying Capital, buy it in Japan because it's like 60% of the retail price it is anywhere else in the world. It's much more affordable and the Japanese yen is weak. But when it comes to Capital, I would have to rate them between S-tier and A-tier. They're not quite S-tier because there's a few products that fall short, but they're very, very damn close. The Real McCoys. The Real McCoys is the most goated brand on this entire list. And I'll tell you right now, this brand goes straight into S tier without question. Reason why? So they do all of their cut and sew at Tadanit, which is the same place that does The North Face product. And they do a few other known Japanese brands. Quality is insanely good there, but what they do for 95% of their products is they're entirely made in-house at their factory in Japan, which is also their head office. And every single person who's cutting and sewing jackets there has to have been cutting and sewing for at least 18 months, being trained by them before they're allowed to put out anything that ends up on a shelf in store. I met the owner, Kento, nicest guy. He produces really, really high quality product. And they actually have an archive of like tens of thousands of vintage pieces from the military, from the '50s, '60s, '60s, '70s, all of these archives that really, really show the process that goes into every single step of what they make. So in terms of quality, Real McCoys is pretty much, in my opinion, the highest quality brand you could purchase from in terms of fabric, in terms of, uh, construction, in terms of choice of, uh, trimmings, in terms of zippers, everything A to Z. They really, really pay attention to detail and they have warranty on their products. That's how serious they are. So, you know, you're buying a good product when you're buying from them. Real McCoy's is S-tier. It's the highest rated brand on this list without a question. Issey Miyake. Issey Miyake is very good. They produce at Maida Senmo that does all of their printing. And then a lot of their cutting and sewing is done throughout factories in Japan. Pretty much their entire production is in Japan. The quality is insanely high. Um, and they have 5 different lines and the quality will vary a little bit from line to line. Um, like the pleated stuff is generally pretty good. Their mainline stuff is the best stuff. Um, and it'll last the longest, but because the quality varies a little bit from line to line and it's not super consistent, I'm going to place Issey Miyake between S-tier and A-tier. It's very close to perfect, but the quality could be just a bit better on some of the other lines. And lastly, we have Comme des Garçons. So Comme des Garçons produces at Matsumaru, which is the factory that does Burberry's jackets, for $350 apiece for just the cutting and sewing. CDG does a lot of their cutting and sewing there for their much higher-end pieces. And in general, I'm very impressed with Comme des Garçons quality. Now, the issue is that this CDG line is probably S-tier, but Comme des Garçons Play and all of the other lines that, you know, are a little bit cheaper, I feel like the quality is not very good. The garments tend to fray. If I'm rating purely CDG, it's probably S tier. If I'm rating all of Comme des Garçons and Empire, I would say it's A tier and I would put it right here. So that's my tier list. Comment down below if you agree or disagree. And if you want to see a part 2, comment which brands you'd like to find out the factories of, and I'll make a part 2 to this video. Thank you guys so much for watching. If you enjoyed this video, check out my other stuff, leave a like, comment, all that good stuff. Until next time, I'm out. Peace.