Can Fashion Sell a New Generation on Trade Jobs?
Fashion faces a critical shortage of skilled craftspeople as tailoring employment has dropped 30% in the U.S. over the past decade, with most artisans now in their 60s and 70s. While other industries are successfully attracting young workers to trade careers, fashion struggles to compete due to low starting salaries (~$45,000), the 20-30 year path to mastery, and lack of visibility around apprenticeship programs that remain largely regional and localized.
Summary
The episode examines fashion's struggle to attract a new generation of skilled tradespeople—tailors, pattern makers, leatherworkers, and embroiderers—as the industry faces a demographic crisis. Senior Correspondent Sheena Butler-Young and Commercial Features Editor Dan Hastings discuss how tailoring employment in the U.S. has fallen roughly 30% over the past decade, with Nordstrom, the largest employer of tailors in North America with nearly 1,500 specialists, leading efforts to rebuild the pipeline through partnerships with FIT, Seattle Central College, and FIDM.
The root causes trace back to the late 1990s and early 2000s when luxury conglomerates like LVMH and Kering consolidated independent couture houses and outsourced manufacturing to Asia, leaving a generational gap. The skilled artisans—mostly women who apprenticed rather than attended formal schools—were not well compensated, and the industry subsequently failed to train successors. Instead, fashion education emphasized design and creativity over craftsmanship, while cultural messaging steered young people toward college degrees and away from trades, which were positioned as consolation prizes for those unsuited for academic paths.
The transcript explores multiple barriers to recruitment: visibility is severely limited, with apprenticeship programs geographically isolated in places like Tuscany, Somerset, and rural France; initial costs ($10,000+ for intensive courses like École Lesage's 150-hour embroidery program) are substantial; the long runway to mastery (20-30 years to reach top earning potential) conflicts with younger workers' expectations of rapid advancement; and average starting salaries for tailors and dressmakers in the U.S. hover around $45,000 annually. Hastings notes that while other trades—plumbing, electrical work, HVAC—are experiencing renewed interest due to concerns about AI's impact on white-collar work and the rising cost of four-year degrees, fashion hasn't yet tapped into this momentum.
However, opportunities exist. Nordstrom's Styling Program received nearly 200 applications for just 15 spots, and Mulberry's leather apprenticeship in Somerset received the highest applications in its history. Companies are reframing these roles around sustainability (extending garment life through repair and restyling) and upward mobility (entry roles as gateways to product development, styling, or management). The transcript emphasizes that luxury brands may have no choice but to invest heavily in training: as the Bulgari chairman noted, restarting suppliers is nearly impossible once they close, making immediate investment in craftspeople essential to preserve the know-how that defines luxury positioning. While AI poses both a threat (automating some functions) and an opportunity (driving interest in human-crafted work that machines cannot replicate, such as haute couture embroidery), the consensus is that this will be a slow, ongoing shift rather than a dramatic reversal.
About this episode
<p>Behind every luxury handbag, bespoke suit and couture gown lies an intricate value chain powered by skilled artisans. But as master craftspeople retire without successors, fashion faces a growing shortage of skilled workers — US tailoring employment has fallen roughly 30 percent over the last decade. Nordstrom, North America's largest employer of tailors, is funding tailoring programmes at FIT and Seattle Central College with another planned at ASU FIDM. The effort is aimed at rebuilding that pipeline at a moment when skilled trades more broadly are enjoying renewed interest from young people questioning the value of a four-year degree.</p><br /><p>In this episode, Sheena Butler-Young is joined by BoF Commercial Features Editor Dan Hastings to explore why fashion’s skilled-trades pipeline has thinned, what the industry is doing to rebuild it, and whether rising tuition costs and anxiety around AI have created a new opportunity to sell young people on these careers. </p><br /><p><strong>Key Insights:</strong></p><br /><p> </p><ul><li>As Hastings sees it, today’s shortage reflects decades of consolidation and the shift of more luxury manufacturing outside traditional fashion capitals. In his view, the industry failed to invest enough in training the next generation of skilled craftspeople, leaving many expert artisans nearing retirement with too few successors in the pipeline. The industry, he says, "kept the offices in the West... but we didn't really train that next generation of handicraft people.”</li></ul><p><br /></p><ul><li>Fashion has long heralded the creative director while overlooking the production side. Hastings argues the industry " venerates the creative director" as its "rock stars," while the people making the clothes remain invisible — a visibility gap that can be compounded, particularly in more junior roles, by pay that doesn’t always reflect the skill required.</li></ul><p><br /></p><ul><li>Apprenticeship programmes tend to cluster around established luxury hubs, leaving many young people unaware these careers are even an option. Hastings argues that interest is there when people know where to look: “It all comes down to knowing that these programmes exist.” But information about apprenticeships, scholarships and bursaries doesn’t always reach prospective workers.</li></ul><p><br /></p><ul><li>Short courses can make trade careers look deceptively fast to enter, but true mastery takes decades. Hastings notes that at some fashion houses, reaching the highest levels can require decades of experience, warning that for a generation “raised on instant gratification,” the long runway between entering the trade and reaching real earning power can be a tough sell.</li></ul><p><br /></p><ul><li>While AI may automate some patternmaking functions, Hastings insists it can't touch the artistry of haute couture. He recalls the tradition of embroidering a strand of hair into a Chanel wedding gown for good luck — “that kind of magic doesn't really happen with AI” — arguing luxury houses will have no choice but to keep investing in training if they want to justify their prices on craftsmanship.</li></ul><p><br /></p><p><strong>Additional Resources:</strong></p><ul><li><a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/workplace-talent/can-ai-ignite-a-new-generation-of-fashion-tradespeople/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Can AI Ignite a New Generation of Fashion Tradespeople? | BoF</strong></a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/articles/workplace-talent/fashions-craftsmanship-challenge/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Fashion's Craftsmanship Challenge | BoF</strong></a></li><li><a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/news/luxury/lvmh-recruits-new-apprentice-artisans-in-us/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"><strong>Facing a Shortage of Luxury Artisans, LVMH Seeks Apprentices in the US | BoF</strong></a></li></ul><p><br /></p><hr /><p style="color: grey; font-size: 0.75em;"> Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="color: grey;" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.</p>
Key Insights
- Dan Hastings argues that the industry's shift toward offshore manufacturing in the 1990s-2000s, combined with consolidation by conglomerates, created a generational vacuum because luxury houses stopped training craftspeople domestically while the industry simultaneously venerated creative directors over artisans.
- Cultural messaging steered a generation away from trades by associating crafts-based work with failure or lack of academic aptitude, whereas college education and office-based careers were positioned as aspirational—a messaging problem that is now slowly reversing due to AI concerns and rising degree costs.
- Hastings claims that apprenticeship programs' effectiveness is severely constrained because information about them is not shared widely across the industry, meaning young people must already be 'in the know' or personally connected to discover opportunities, limiting reach beyond regional populations.
- The economics of these careers create a paradox: short-term training programs (4-6 weeks to a year) suggest quick entry but mask a 20-30 year reality to reach master-level compensation, which conflicts with younger workers' expectations of rapid advancement and instant gratification.
- Luxury brands are being structurally forced to invest in craftspeople training because once suppliers and manufacturing ecosystems close, they cannot be restarted, making current investment in apprenticeships an existential business necessity rather than a discretionary corporate social responsibility initiative.
Topics
Transcript
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