Wal-Mart and Li and Fung February 1, 2010
Posted by SCAD Fashion Department in : Careers, Industry News, Manufacturers, SCAD , trackbackWhat does a company like Wal-Mart do with a $300 billion product budget? They spend a huge chunk of that on private label production. Over $100 billion in their annual purchasing goes to private label manufacturers like Hong-Kong based Li and Fung.
Last Thursday, Wal-Mart announced that they will be consolidating $2 billion of their apparel business under Li and Fung, a century old manufacturer that specializes in large volume apparel production. This should be great news for those of you who interviewed last week for their design internship program in New York. Looks like there will be plenty to keep you busy!
Read more about the agreement between Li and Fung in the WWD article* where one Wall Street insider noted “Up until now, Wal-Mart has been unable to create a sufficient taste level internally to do fashion by itself. To me, that’s a major shortcoming, and they need to address that. Li & Fung may help them along the way toward understanding fashion. If they put tasteful fashion on the floor, the customer will respond.”
Designers, this is a HUGE chance for you work at a company that not only owns the sourcing arm of Liz Claiborne Inc, whose brands include Lucky Brand, Juicy Couture and Kate Spade . . . but you could also potentially make a major impact on raising the taste level in a company that accounts for over 2% of America’s GDP.
- Tiffany Teague
*Note: You must be logged on to the SCAD network to access the WWD article – click the WWD link to the right to find the article if the link above doesn’t work.
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[...] the massive manufacturing company that recently won a multibillion (yes, that’s a b!) dollar deal with Wal-Mart is actively looking for interns at their headquarters in New York. The internship is paid and is [...]