HOW LOS ANGELES BECAME A POWERHOUSE OF JUNIOR FASHION

Los Angeles didn't become a major American apparel center by following fashion slowly. It learned how to move. As the junior market grew during the second half of the twentieth century, Los Angeles developed an apparel ecosystem particularly suited to younger, trend-driven fashion. Designers, patternmakers, cutters, sewing contractors, fabric and trim suppliers, manufacturers, showrooms, salespeople and buyers operated within a remarkably concentrated network. That proximity gave L.A. manufacturers an advantage: See what was selling. Develop something new. Produce it. Get it back into the market quickly. Long before today's conversation about fast fashion, quick-turn production was already part of the Los Angeles apparel business. And the junior market helped strengthen the manufacturing and wholesale infrastructure that would later support some of L.A.'s biggest fashion stories — including denim and contemporary apparel. This is The L.A. Fashion Industry | Past — documenting the people, places, companies and systems that built the Los Angeles fashion industry. L.A. Rag Maker Past. Present. Next. #LAFashionHistory #JuniorFashion #LosAngelesFashion #LAFashionDistrict #ApparelManufacturing #GarmentIndustry #LARagMaker