It’s a Thursday afternoon in New York and Pauline Lock has a problem.
At the apparel factory she runs on West 36th Street, she’s storing hundreds of crisp cotton button-down blouses—a seasonal must-have—that are almost finished except for some critical details: The shirts’ buttons are stuck somewhere on their journey from China, and Lock is unsure of when they will arrive.
Lock manages InStyle USA, a 35-year-old company that has made clothes for iconic U.S. brands, including Calvin Klein, Donna Karan, Halston, and Eileen Fisher. Over the past few decades, she has survived tectonic shifts in the domestic garment-making industry as globalization led fashion retailers to offshore production to cheaper countries. But she’s never faced a crisis like the one she’s in now, as she tries to navigate Trump’s tariffs.
People think domestic factories must be bustling, she tells Fortune. But instead of responding to a rush of orders from clothing labels desperate to find homegrown manufacturers, the latest trade policy changes have forced her to cut her staff in half, and created a “tornado” of repercussions. “In the 35 years that we’ve been in business, we’ve never had to scale down like this,” she says.
“On a personal level, everyone’s terrified.”
Lock runs precisely the kind of domestic manufacturing business the tariffs are meant to bolster.
Designers don’t know how to plan for future projects, because the costs are so unclear. Retailers have stopped placing orders because they’re not confident that consumers will keep shopping. (In today’s environment, Lock says, people aren’t likely to choose new shirts and pants over food or rent payments. “Suddenly those clothes in the closet,” she says, “they don’t look too shabby.”) Retail shops have also become more prone to play hardball with wholesalers—i.e., her clients—over existing agreements. For example, Lock explains, stores typically ask for a discount when a delivery is late. Now they might say: “‘Well, we’re not sure if this is even going to sell, so since you’re going to be late, we’re going to cancel all orders.’”
For clothing makers, shopping around to source materials in countries with lower tariffs may not pay off: France and Italy aren’t facing the same steep levies as China, but European high-grade fabrics are priced higher before any tariffs are applied.
To boost U.S. garment manufacturing, Lock says, “We have to make sure that we have a solid foundation before we cut off the rest of the world.”
Lock says that if circumstances don’t change, InStyle and other apparel-making businesses of its size could go out of business within six months.
Lock can’t choose just one metaphor to describe the past few weeks. She says fallout from tariffs has been like a blizzard, or like riding a rollercoaster. She’s had to cut the number of hourly workers in her factory from 20 to 10. (InStyle employed more than 75 people before the pandemic.) The people who are left have also had their hours reduced, agreeing to share shifts to protect jobs and ride out the storm.
“We have so much invested, we’re like a family here, and we don’t want to see our family collapse,” she said.
She’s exploring other options to bring work to the factory and is considering a temporary pivot to making uniforms. Her competitors are having the same conversations, she says, asking themselves how they can survive.
Lock says she’s trying to stay positive and even gets some good news on Friday afternoon. Delayed for weeks at customs, the buttons she needs to finish the shirts languishing in nearly complete state have arrived, and will soon be sewn on. The order should be wrapped up and on a truck by Monday—and, at least this time, InStyle isn’t taking a hit for the snafu.
“People are being understanding,” says Lock, “and we’re grateful for that.”
