Fashion Roundtable lobbies for fashion manufacturing to be part of Government's Trump tariff strategy

Fashion industry think tank and lobby group Fashion Roundtable is pushing for UK fashion and textiles manufacturing to be included in the Government's industrial strategy, which is being devised in response to US President Donald Trump's swingeing global trade tariffs.

As is stands, fashion and textiles manufacturing and its associated skills, are not listed in the Government strategy, which has focused largely on major manufacturing industries such as cars and engineering. Car manufacturers, for instance, are being offered relief on green targets to help offset the negative impact of the tariffs.

Fashion Roundtable Founder & CEO Tamara Cincik is urging the Government to think more widely and is collating evidence from the fashion sector to present to the Department of Trade & Industry.

"Industry is not just cars and aeroplanes, it is also the very essence of producing textiles such as the heritage of Harris Tweed or the digital innovations of Kornit printers who partner with [UK fashion manufacturer] Fashion-Enter. We need the UK government to stop seeing industry as jobs for the boys and start seeing the issues our sector face with as much gravity as they do for car factories such as Nissan and Land Rover," Cincik said.

"I am very concerned that the fashion manufacturing industry was not listed as part of the Industrial Strategy and our skills are not listed as a priority either, This is at odds with the government's commitment to creative industries being a driver for economic growth and in pushing greater inclusion across the four nations. Given the shock of the US tariffs and the on-going impacts of Brexit on UK trade with the EU, we need to see a greater commitment to UK made for UK consumers and this includes the UK government who could commit to UK made public procurement as a first step," she added.

While the UK has been issued with the lowest tariffs of 10%, which on the face of it looks like good news, most UK fashion brands for instance do not make the bulk of their product in the UK, which is likely to lead to further confusion as they export to the US, said Cincik,

"I predict a chaos of 'UK washing' in the coming weeks as brands who are headquartered here might be listed with HMRC as making here, so having 10% tariffs with the US when in reality they manufacture in China (104%) or Italy (25%)," she said.

Fashion Roundtable has set up a survey to help understand the issues facing the UK fashion market and is inviting participation here.