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Agenda-setting intelligence, analysis and advice for the global fashion community.

The Industry That Eats Its Young

Small fashion labels have always been shortchanged by their wholesale partners. A wave of high-profile bankruptcies has turned a structural injustice into an existential crisis. There is a better way to do business, writes Imran Amed.
Ssense's bankruptcy has left a long tail of small brands owed money they will almost certainly never see.
Ssense's bankruptcy has left a long tail of small brands owed money they will almost certainly never see. (Getty Images)

For more than a decade, I have been trying to draw attention to one of fashion’s most persistent and least discussed structural failures: the way big multi-brand retailers treat the small independent designers whose work they depend on to project taste, edge and cultural relevance.

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