Yahoo! News – Beyonce Starts Clothing Line

Yahoo! News – Beyonce Starts Clothing Line
Beyonce Starts Clothing Line

By SAMANTHA CRITCHELL, AP Fashion Writer

NEW YORK – Beyonce is planning a new release — her own fashion collection. The Destiny’s Child singer has signed a licensing agreement with the Tarrant Apparel Group to produce a line of apparel for young women. She named the House of Dereon collection after her grandmother Agnes Dereon, who worked as a seamstress.

Now… Since Beyonce isn’t an evil white man corporation like Wal Mart or Target, do you think she’ll catch shit for having her clothing line manufactured in Hong Kong or Mexico?

Just so you know, from Tarrant’s Website:

United States – Tarrant Apparel Group
Tarrant’s world headquarters in Los Angeles is home to corporate planning and development, financial and computer operations, and customer service departments. In order to address the specific needs of its clients, each account is assigned a team of designers, quality assurance technicians, trackers, and sample makers. Tarrant also maintains a showroom in New York City and customer service offices in Columbus, Ohio and in Bentonville, Arkansas.

MEXICO – Tag Mex
Tarrant owns and leases out a substantial portion of the manufacturing facilities and operations in Mexico. They include a denim mill, a group of seven sewing and washing plants, a 1,500,000 square foot twill mill, garment processing facility, and distribution center. These facilities are capable of handling washing, finishing and packaging of garments.

HONG KONG – Tarrant Company Limited
Tarrant’s Hong Kong operation produces thousands of samples each month that are delivered to retailers for in-store testing, before rapidly and cost-effectively producing bulk orders of these items. Tarrant further developed its Hong Kong sourcing network and opened an office in Thailand and a sample-making facility in Guangdong Province, China.

Nice. Notice no US manufacturing jobs.

Way to give back to the community, Beyonce!

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  • http://www.stageleft.info stageleft

    You don’t really expect clothing, especially name brand clothing to be made in North America do you Vinny? If it was the market they are targeting wouldn’t be able to afford the stuff. No, no, no….. this is a job for less developed countries where labour laws and standards are actually lower than the sweatshop wages people get paid to make them so that the western consumer can look chic on a budget.

    The equally sad fact is that the North American consumer will support this type of practice and even pat themselves on the back for a job well done… regardless of the conditions in which the clothing was made, or the harm done to local economies – globalization at its finest.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    You probably don’t know who Kathie Lee Gifford is, but she was absolutely destroyed publicly when it got out that her K-mart clothing line was being manufactured in foreign countries by child labor.

    It would be interesting to see how differently the young black star is treated as compared to the old white one. The history of this country already bears out that Beyonce’s choice to partner with a company that doesn’t manufacturer their goods in the US will result in zero condemnation from rights groups, unions, or minority advocates in this country, all of whom hold her up as a shining example of minority success.

    If history repeats itself, and I have no reason to believe it won’t, the silence on Beyonce’s exporting of labor will be deafening.

  • pete from astoria

    We all remember King Michael Jordan pitching his obscenely overpriced NIKE sneakers during most of the nineties. Thank god that’s over! Guess where NIKE manufactures its footwear? I don’t remember anyone in the media wringing their hands over that issue. I guess outsourcing wasn’t a fashionable word during the Clinton era.

  • http://www.jeffandcarol.com/jeff Jeff

    Since Beyonce isn’t an evil white man corporation like Wal Mart or Target, do you think she’ll catch shit for having her clothing line manufactured in Hong Kong or Mexico?

    Does anyone catch shit anymore? Really, since that infamous Kathy Lee story I can’t remember a single company catching shit for poor labor standards from the media. The last thing I heard about was GAP admitting they had a labor issue. But they did that on their own. Nobody in the media was breathing down their neck.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    Ummmm… Wal-Mart?

  • http://www.jeffandcarol.com/jeff Jeff

    Wal-Mart

    I guess you’re right. But isn’t the Wal-Mart criticism more like “Wal-Mart sucks because they destroy mom and pop shops and suck the soul out of your quaint little town”?

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com Vinny

    Kind of, but the big complaint around here at least is that they make people work without punching in, work just 39.9 hours so they don’t have to give them benefits, and so on. They’re continuously bagged on for the way they treat their workers.

    At least that’s the general consensus. I have heard the mom and pop thing, but the labor thing is always the top of the list when people mention what they hate about Wal-Mart.

  • http://www.stageleft.info/ stageleft

    You don’t really expect clothing, especially name brand clothing to be made in North America do you Vinny? If it was the market they are targeting wouldn’t be able to afford the stuff. No, no, no….. this is a job for less developed countries where labour laws and standards are actually lower than the sweatshop wages people get paid to make them so that the western consumer can look chic on a budget.

    The equally sad fact is that the North American consumer will support this type of practice and even pat themselves on the back for a job well done… regardless of the conditions in which the clothing was made, or the harm done to local economies – globalization at its finest.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    You probably don’t know who Kathie Lee Gifford is, but she was absolutely destroyed publicly when it got out that her K-mart clothing line was being manufactured in foreign countries by child labor.

    It would be interesting to see how differently the young black star is treated as compared to the old white one. The history of this country already bears out that Beyonce’s choice to partner with a company that doesn’t manufacturer their goods in the US will result in zero condemnation from rights groups, unions, or minority advocates in this country, all of whom hold her up as a shining example of minority success.

    If history repeats itself, and I have no reason to believe it won’t, the silence on Beyonce’s exporting of labor will be deafening.

  • pete from astoria

    We all remember King Michael Jordan pitching his obscenely overpriced NIKE sneakers during most of the nineties. Thank god that’s over! Guess where NIKE manufactures its footwear? I don’t remember anyone in the media wringing their hands over that issue. I guess outsourcing wasn’t a fashionable word during the Clinton era.

  • http://www.jeffandcarol.com/jeff Jeff

    Since Beyonce isn’t an evil white man corporation like Wal Mart or Target, do you think she’ll catch shit for having her clothing line manufactured in Hong Kong or Mexico?

    Does anyone catch shit anymore? Really, since that infamous Kathy Lee story I can’t remember a single company catching shit for poor labor standards from the media. The last thing I heard about was GAP admitting they had a labor issue. But they did that on their own. Nobody in the media was breathing down their neck.

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    Ummmm… Wal-Mart?

  • http://www.jeffandcarol.com/jeff Jeff

    Wal-Mart

    I guess you’re right. But isn’t the Wal-Mart criticism more like “Wal-Mart sucks because they destroy mom and pop shops and suck the soul out of your quaint little town”?

  • http://www.insignificantthoughts.com/ Vinny

    Kind of, but the big complaint around here at least is that they make people work without punching in, work just 39.9 hours so they don’t have to give them benefits, and so on. They’re continuously bagged on for the way they treat their workers.

    At least that’s the general consensus. I have heard the mom and pop thing, but the labor thing is always the top of the list when people mention what they hate about Wal-Mart.

  • http://toejogdates.wordpress.com/ Ina Lau

    I think the people that whine about clothing being made somewhere else have nothing better to do than to moan and groan about pointless topics such as this. I wish they would start looking on anything and everything that they buy
    or are even involved with because there is hardly ANYTHING that is actually made in the USA and if it is it doesn’t have much quality at all!

  • http://toejogdates.wordpress.com Ina Lau

    I think the people that whine about clothing being made somewhere else have nothing better to do than to moan and groan about pointless topics such as this. I wish they would start looking on anything and everything that they buy
    or are even involved with because there is hardly ANYTHING that is actually made in the USA and if it is it doesn’t have much quality at all!

  • http://24.dk/user/louhorn Stephanie

    I completely agree with Ina. There is hardly anything that is made in the u.s. and the things that are produced in the u.s. are complete crap. I prefer to check out the way they make things with their labor conditions but unless it is really bad it is not going to stop me from getting what I need.

  • http://24.dk/user/louhorn Stephanie

    I completely agree with Ina. There is hardly anything that is made in the u.s. and the things that are produced in the u.s. are complete crap. I prefer to check out the way they make things with their labor conditions but unless it is really bad it is not going to stop me from getting what I need.

  • ed hardy

    One thing which I wanted to say is, Everything is going to be changed in U.S and all around the world. Perhaps we are no more brand conscious and always want something more suitable and more rewarding.

  • ed hardy

    One thing which I wanted to say is, Everything is going to be changed in U.S and all around the world. Perhaps we are no more brand conscious and always want something more suitable and more rewarding.