With the click of a button, you can buy a dress for just $5 on fast-fashion websites like Shein.
Consumers have become acclimated to a retail landscape where they can buy blouses, pants and dresses for extremely low prices. But those cheap price tags come at a cost.
Shein employees commonly work 75 hours a week, and only make between about $866 and $1,440 for the entire month, according to a 2024 report from the Swiss human rights group Public Eye.
President Donald Trump has implemented tariffs on goods from around the world, including a 10% baseline tariff and a 145% tariff on most Chinese imports, and said these levies will help shore up American manufacturing and jobs.
But it will still likely be cheaper to make clothing abroad in some countries if your production is already in progress, said Niki English, senior director of brand development at AJG Fashion Consulting. “In the past few years, a number of our domestic factories just didn't have the business and had to close,” English said. Reskilling laborers and recreating our domestic supply chain will take a lot of time, English said.
Manufacturing has moved overseas to countries like China, Vietnam and Bangladesh, where the cost of production is lower, said Alexandra Vasquez, the owner and founder of Herderin, a design studio based in the San Francisco Bay Area. “In the 1950s, a sewing machine was a mainstay of many American homes. But today, you rarely will see that. We don't have a connection to the clothing making process,” Vasquez said.
In the first half of the 20th century, Americans spent up to 14% of their annual income on clothing and had a more limited wardrobe. But in 2023, Americans spent less than 3% on clothing as costs have plummeted.
We asked several clothing experts to share some back-of-napkin calculations on how much each garment should cost if clothing companies are making it in the U.S. and using high-quality materials like wool and silk. Here’s what they told us. | 
