How Tory Burch got into ‘Made in China’ early and gave New York accessible fashion to the world

Designer tells of her pride at staying true to her aesthetic and hails the ‘outstanding’ quality of Chinese production that’s key to keeping brand affordable

Her company is the only New York fashion brand to have gone truly global in the past 20 years

Reading Time:4 minutes

Published: 7:30am, 27 Jan 2020Updated: 2:33pm, 29 Jan 2020

American fashion has been in a bit of a lull lately. While New York reigns supreme as the fashion capital of the United States, hardly any global brands have come out of the city in recent years.

If you’re looking for innovation and excitement in the US apparel industry, you’re more likely to find it in San Francisco, Austin, Texas, or Los Angeles, where a number of direct-to-consumer brands offering cool basics have made strides, largely within the US.

The only truly global brand to have emerged from the US since the turn of the millennium is Tory Burch, which was founded by the designer of the same name in 2004 and in less than two decades has become a fully fledged lifestyle brand like Ralph Lauren.

The story of how Burch, a former fashion executive, started out from a small shop in the Nolita neighbourhood of Manhattan and became a household name is the stuff of legend in fashion circles.

Tory Burch has found success in the accessories market, selling bags and shoes.

“In the beginning, when I started, this idea of accessible wasn’t interesting to people,” says Burch when we meet in her Manhattan office the day after her spring/summer 2020 show at New York Fashion Week. “It was to our customer, but it wasn’t as cool to be accessible in the fashion world as it is today. But I thought it was interesting and challenging too to design beautiful things at that price point.”

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