Manufacturing’s coming home: UK fashion boss champions ‘reshoring’
On a hot summer’s day in Derbyshire, Christopher Nieper is worried about getting cloth from Shanghai to his factory in the former mining town of Alfreton.
For three months over the spring and early summer he had a container full of fabric stuck in the port of Shanghai while the Chinese city was locked down because of Covid. Eventually, to avoid waiting any longer, he paid an extra €5,000 (£4,200) to have it air freighted, first to France, and then on to the East Midlands.
“I had customers who ordered in March saying: ‘Where is my dress? I’m going to have to cancel it.’”
Now the owner of David Nieper, the family-run business named after his father that has been making womenswear, knitwear and lingerie in the town since 1961, is looking closer to home for its vital materials.
“You can turn three months into one week,” he says. “Think of the environment, saving the energy needed to bring something all that way around the world. Think of the time saved, of the wastage being avoided, of the customer satisfaction.”
In response to severe disruption caused by Covid shutdowns in China and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than a third of UK manufacturers have increased the number of suppliers they use, according to a survey by the industry group Make UK. More than three-quarters of these companies are increasing their use of UK suppliers.
“The seismic shocks of the last few years have created a potent cocktail of factors which has turned business models upside down,” says Verity Davidge, director of policy at the manufacturers’ body. “For many companies this will mean leaving ‘just in time’ behind and embracing ‘just in case.’”
However, the trend is far from straightforward, with questions over the higher production costs and Britain’s
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