ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the heuristic model to explore contemporary change in the United Kingdom clothing industry, dealing with the sources, strategies and outcomes of restructuring. Textile production was an important part of the industrial infrastructure of the ‘workshop of the world’ and the associated clothing manufacture rapidly expanded with the adoption of factory production techniques. Clothing industry management have been prompted by the imperatives and options to initiate a variety of restructuring strategies, the complex outcomes of which became increasingly apparent during the 1980s. In the United Kingdom clothing industry, the major outcomes identified have been in terms of capital; operational; spatial; organizational and technological restructuring, as well as the restructuring of work organization. Changes in the organization of garment making have been crucially affected by the developing relationships between retailers, clothing manufacturers and textile companies. The chapter explains the patterns of restructuring identified and to offer a prognosis for the industry’s future.
