What We Stand to Lose When We Stop Making Things

What We Stand to Lose When We Stop Making Things

New Zealand has always been a country of makers.

We grow the fibre. We raise the sheep. We design, knit, cut, sew, finish and repair. For generations, these skills formed part of a connected local industry that turned our raw materials into products made here, by people here.

But that ecosystem has become increasingly difficult to sustain.

In the 1970s, around 110,000 New Zealanders worked across clothing, knitted products, footwear and repair. By 2000, that number had fallen to 19,879. By 2023, it was just 9,566.

That number tells a story, but it doesn't tell the whole story.

Because when a manufacturing business closes, it isn't only the jobs that disappear. Skills leave with retiring workers. Suppliers lose customers. Training opportunities become harder to justify. Machinery becomes harder to maintain. And the specialist businesses that support manufacturing, from patternmakers and cutters to dyers, pressers, trim suppliers and fabric wholesalers, become increasingly difficult to sustain.

Over time, an industry can lose the very infrastructure it needs to function.

When an ecosystem disappears

A single locally made piece can rely on a surprisingly extensive network of expertise. There are designers and patternmakers. Cutters and machinists. Knitters, dyers and finishers. Fabric and trim suppliers. Technicians who maintain machinery.

People with decades of knowledge about how particular fibres behave, how garments are constructed and how problems are solved on the factory floor.

We've seen the effects of this decline across. The closure of fashion businesses such as Kate Sylvester, Nisa, Mina and Hej Hej has brought renewed attention to the challenges facing local labels. In 2023, workers at the Made It Here factory in Hawke's Bay were told the business was closing, with 14 jobs affected.

The wider manufacturing picture tells a similar story. From 1990 to 2025, New Zealand's real economy grew by around 150%, while real manufacturing output grew by just 28%. Manufacturing's share of GDP fell from 15.4% to 7.9%.

Jacinta FitzGerald, Chief Executive of Mindful Fashion NZ, has linked part of the decline in clothing manufacturing to the removal of quotas and reduction of tariffs during the 1980s and 1990s.

The result is an industry operating in a very different environment from the one that existed several generations ago.

A country that grows fibre, but imports clothing

Perhaps one of the more striking contradictions is found in our relationship with wool.

New Zealand produces enough fibre each year to fill an estimated 6,600 shipping containers, yet imports more than 80% of its woollen clothing.

Much of our fibre leaves the country before it has been transformed into a finished product. Value is created through every stage of processing: spinning, knitting, weaving, dyeing, cutting, sewing and finishing.

The more of those stages that happen offshore, the less of that knowledge, employment and economic value remains within New Zealand.

But bringing those capabilities home isn't as simple as deciding that we should make more things here. Manufacturing needs scale. Scale needs reliable demand. Demand needs viable businesses. Businesses need skilled people, machinery, suppliers, investment and training.

Each part supports the others. This is what makes manufacturing ecosystems so difficult to rebuild once they've been allowed to diminish.

Why local capability matters

The case for local manufacturing isn't that everything needs to be made in New Zealand.

Global supply chains are an established part of modern manufacturing, and there are good reasons why different products and processes happen in different places. The question is what capability we want to retain here.

The Threads of Tomorrow report from Mindful Fashion NZ and EY identifies skills, infrastructure, investment and collaboration as important considerations for the future of Aotearoa's fashion, clothing and textiles sector.

COVID-19 offered a very tangible demonstration of the value of local production. When international supply chains were disrupted, businesses with some domestic manufacturing capacity had an additional degree of resilience.

That resilience matters beyond clothing. A country with manufacturing capability retains the ability to make, adapt and respond when circumstances change. It also gives designers, businesses and emerging makers somewhere to experiment and develop products without having to build an entire supply chain from scratch.

For New Zealand, retaining manufacturing capability is about more than nostalgia for a garment that says "Made in New Zealand". It's about preserving the ability to make things here at all.

Keeping the ecosystem alive

At Untouched World, we've seen first-hand that local manufacturing isn't a single transaction between a brand and a factory. It's a relationship between people, skills, materials and businesses that has to be continually maintained.

It takes commitment to local suppliers. It takes manufacturers willing to invest in people and equipment. It takes designers who understand the realities of production. It takes training and opportunities for the next generation. And it takes enough ongoing work for specialist businesses to remain viable. None of these things can be solved by one group alone.

For those of us working within the industry, the responsibility is to understand what is at stake and to continue investing in the relationships and capabilities that make local production possible.

Because once a skill disappears, a factory closes, or a specialist supplier shuts its doors, bringing that capability back can take years.

What does "NZ Made" mean for the future?

"Made in New Zealand" is more than a label. Behind those three words can sit decades of accumulated knowledge: how to work with our fibres, how to construct a garment, how to solve problems, and how to pass those skills on.

The challenge ahead is not simply to sell more New Zealand-made clothing. It is to ensure that there are still people who know how to make.

Because if we want future generations of New Zealand designers and makers to have the option of producing locally here, the capability to do so needs to exist before they need it.

References:

— Untouched World
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