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Op-Ed | Fashion’s Reset: What Tariffs Are Forcing Us to Finally Fix

Collapsing margins and surging inventory costs are more than a crisis: they’re an opportunity to rebuild our broken fashion system, argues Lawrence Lenihan.
A radical shift in US trade policy is forcing fashion to confront deep-rooted inefficiencies, argues Lawrence Lenihan.
A radical shift in US trade policy is forcing fashion to confront deep-rooted inefficiencies, argues Lawrence Lenihan. (Getty Images)
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Tariffs are forcing fashion to confront a reality it has refused to face — until now. Not because the system was working, but because the industry was too invested in the illusion that it was. Now, with margins collapsing and inventory costs surging in the wake of sweeping new duties on imports from key fashion manufacturing hubs, that illusion has been shattered. But this isn’t just a crisis. It’s an opportunity to rebuild fashion on new terms: intelligent, resilient and real.

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Further Reading

Op-Ed | The Rise of the Unwasteful Brand

A profitable, multi-trillion dollar fashion industry populated with brands that generate minimal economic and environmental waste is within our reach, argues Lawrence Lenihan.

Op-Ed | The End of the $1 Billion Fashion Brand

Armed with huge sums of money invested at sky-high valuations, fashion start-ups are setting themselves up for failure. But with the right capital structure, any company that can build a brand that delights its customers can be an economic win for all involved, argues Lawrence Lenihan.

Op-Ed | Why Are We Ruining Our Best Young Fashion Companies?

Lawrence Lenihan, managing director of FirstMark Capital, argues that the Internet provides a new model for building fashion businesses based on passionate and intimate relationships with consumers, but the maximum market size for these companies is inherently capped, something that overcapitalised entrepreneurs, and the investors who fund them, too often fail to recognise.

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