The US election is continuing to heat up, with voting day now visibly on the horizon. While at the forefront of debates are the policies and outlooks presented by political candidates, there is much behind-the-scenes work by industry representatives that goes well beyond the deadlines of ballot entries. For fashion, the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA) is one of those leading the way.

The national trade association is currently overseen by its president and CEO Steve Lamar, who has led the organisation and its associated members – of which there are around 1,000 – through a tumultuous period, yet has retained the perspective that the AAFA is to act as an advocate for the industry, seeking out best practices for the interests of those involved. Speaking to FashionUnited, Lamar discusses the role of a national organisation like AAFA during the US election year and why we should be paying closer attention to the implementation of policies aiming to regulate the fashion industry.

Since joining AAFA, how have you watched the organisation evolve over the years? How has its mission changed to align with the times?

The association predates me by more than 100 years. I joined in the late 90s and the association traces its roots back to the 1850s, both on the apparel side and on the footwear side. Our current association is the product of a merger of three associations, which is about to celebrate its 25th anniversary. Those associations were themselves the products of a series of previous mergers dating back to the 1800s.

In some respects, the mission is very different, and in others it is the same. The membership makeup has changed and our role has adapted. At the same time, our basic role as an association is likely very much aligned to what it was more than 100 years ago, which is to bring the industry together, to advocate on behalf of the industry and to use that collective opportunity to seek best practices, to seek policies that help the industry and its stakeholders compete and succeed, and to, frankly, fight against policies that get in the way of that of that success mission.

AAFA Logo. Credits: AAFA.

You were appointed president of the AAFA back in 2020, just prior to the start of the pandemic. How did that shape your own mission for AAFA when taking on this role?

One of the things that I've been promoting a lot at the Association is our ability to deliver value back to our members. Members invest in us: they join, they attend events, they interact with us. We want to make that worth their time. One of the things that the pandemic taught me is that this was something we needed to be doing in ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ times. Over the last five years, people have referred to the “new normal”. But normal times are often, by definition, almost abnormal times.

Our focus, which was in place before the pandemic but has gotten deeper since, has been three pillars that reference how we approach our trade association. These are brand protection, preventing counterfeits, for example; supply chain and sourcing, all of the responsible business practices and regulation that goes into making and delivering a product; and trade logistics and manufacturing, which is about getting something from that side of the border to this side, and vice versa.

“Normal times are often, by definition, almost abnormal times,”

Steve Lamar, AAFA President and CEO

E-commerce really exploded and created tremendous challenges and opportunities, but it comes with a very darkside, which is the ability for counterfeiters to more easily prey on you. We have also seen tremendous changes to trade policies that have been developed in response to either the pandemic, or things connected to it. It's a push to get a more regulated approach to ESG and CSR disciplines.

Now, four years into your position, another election year has come around. How does this period complicate the organisation’s role? How do you adapt to the changing needs of the industry at this time?

I think elections, whether they are in the US or anywhere in the world, are always something we want to celebrate, because it's an opportunity to come together to peacefully elect leaders that are going to take us forward over whatever time period that is. We always approach elections as a natural part of our civic engagement, and in the US, we have in our Constitution, embedded into the First Amendment, a number of freedoms – freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, etc.

One of these is the freedom to petition the government for redress of grievances. That means the ability to go into government agencies and talk to folks there – whether it’s Congress or the administration – and let them know what’s going on and speak our minds without fear of reprisal. We can have a responsible, peaceful conversation, share information and know that the policymakers are going to be able to take that and hopefully craft some good policies.

US VP and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris listens as former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a debate at the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on September 10, 2024. Credits: Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP

We also encourage our membership to be active throughout the year in that process, and to encourage their employees to go out and vote, too. It's a conversation that doesn't begin and end in an election. After the election, next year, we're there on swearing-in day. We're there as they start to debate initial ideas or policies, looking at budgets and policies that have been in place, or perhaps new ones that were proposed in the last Congress that possibly didn’t get far. We try to figure out how we can advance the conversation further.

In an election year, the dynamic is a little different, but in many respects it's no different than any other year. It just adds an element to this long-term civic engagement that we think is our responsibility, not only as a trade association, but as citizens of the US.

Do you have to keep a level of neutrality when it comes to politics? How do you navigate your work in this respect, particularly at a time of such contrasting views?

We are nonpartisan. We abide by that very strongly and don’t express preferences for political parties. Rather, we express preferences for policies and for concepts behind policies. We have developed a protocol that is primarily used for sustainability, but it applies everywhere. This is the THREADS protocol [Transparently developed and enforced; Harmonised across jurisdictions and industries; Realistic timelines; Enforceable; Adjustable; Designed for success; and Science-based, ed.]. We developed this to guide our conversations with federal and state legislators, primarily on sustainability policies, to say: if you want to regulate the industry, that’s welcome, but here’s the way it needs to be done in order for it to be helpful for you and for us.

“You’d be amazed at how many times someone will set a regulation, and there is no existing test method, so there’s no way to comply with that rule,”

Steve Lamar, AAFA President and CEO

In the field of chemical management, for example, there must be test results and methods. You’d be amazed at how many times someone will set a regulation, and there is no existing test method, so there’s no way to comply with that rule. We focus our attention on the policies more than the politics, if I can draw that distinction.

What challenges is the US fashion industry currently facing that you hope will be addressed under the direction of the incoming party?

In this respect, we are looking at Congress and state houses. If you look back to the federal level, however, one of the areas both candidates, vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump, have been talking about is trade policy and tariff policy. Former president Trump has called for an extensive range of brand new tariffs. Vice president Harris has, rightfully, said that’s a mistake. However, the record of the Biden-Harris administration has been to embrace a lot of the same tariffs that the Trump administration had previously proposed.

One of the things we keep calling for is for them to really go forward with a tariff policy that’s going to work, and is not based on the 1920s economy, on which our current tariff policy is based. A policy that creates market-opening opportunities and renews existing trade programmes that support efforts to diversify the industry away from China, such as the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which is expiring in September of next year. Our job is to make sure that it gets done. Additionally, there is the task of looking at trade policy as a way to create predictability that can support jobs and consumers through affordable fashion.

Are there any policies or topics currently being discussed that you think need to be revisited, changed or accelerated on?

One big dynamic in the area of policy will be to make sure the industry has the tools to become the best partner for combating climate change, to become traceable and transparent. We all want this. The industry wants it, stakeholders want it, NGOs want it, consumers want it. There's a lot of ideas about the best way to do that. What's important is for us all to come together on a regulatory approach that enables us to accomplish those things without creating obstacles. One example that people are talking about is the Digital Product Passport (DPP), where QR codes will be put on labels of clothing to give more information to consumers. This I agree with, but wouldn’t it be amazing if we could use the QR code to communicate all the other information on a label, instead of having a booklet of labels at your neck.

“There’s a number of places where the best of intentions are going to stand in the way of doing what those intentions want us to do,”

Steve Lamar, AAFA President and CEO

Getting policymakers to agree to that single point has been a very challenging task so far, because they’re seeing these QR codes as a means to provide more information rather than replacing the way in which that information is communicated. Our current regulations, once added up, mean you are using enough label tape – made because collective governments are requiring us to produce it – to go from the earth to the moon and back 12 times. That’s how much label tape we produce every single year at the request of government regulators. We are calling for a smarter and more efficient approach. There’s a number of places where the best of intentions are going to stand in the way of doing what those intentions want us to do.

Illustration of the Digital Product Passport (DPP). Credits: FashionUnited / Made using an AI tool.

There is also the Uyghur Forced Labour Prevention Act (UFLPA), which is a really important provision in ensuring there’s no forced labour in the supply chain. While it's an important, basic law that needs to be in place, it is based on something that goes back to the 1930s. It was improved a few years ago with a version specific to Xinjiang [a district in China that has often come under criticism for allegations of forced labour, ed.]. The way customs interprets the current rules, however, is that you have to go back and prove every one of those recycled pieces of clothing doesn’t have a link to Xinjiang, which at this stage is impossible. What happens if the component is made of recycled material or clothes?

The end result is that companies are not willing to, or are afraid to, use recycled materials in their end products, because if that product gets stopped, they can’t move it into the country. There’s no practical way to go past the recycler. You are unable to prove anything from the recycler all the way back down the supply chain. So, the UFLPA, as good as it is, because of the way it’s being implemented, is actually causing a roadblock to the development of a fully circular recycling industry. Trying to get policymakers and regulators to understand the side effects has been a challenge. We are able to define the policy and enforcement strategy so it doesn’t need to be a problem, but this hasn’t been done yet. Part of what we do is try to make sure that the policies and regulations that go forward don’t conflict with each other.

“The UFLPA, because of the way it’s being implemented, is actually causing a roadblock to the development of a fully circular recycling industry,”

Steve Lamar, AAFA President and CEO

You also mentioned the rise of counterfeits and how that has become an increasing problem in the US. What are the issues here, and why is it such a challenge to regulate this side of the industry?

There is indeed a need to make sure that those in the e-commerce space can truly authenticate a product, and that we’re not seeing the flood of counterfeits we are seeing right now. It’s at an unacceptable level. We allow third-party marketplaces to traffic in counterfeits, and those counterfeits come with all kinds of dangers, including product safety. They are also likely made under conditions that abuse workers rights or cause environmental impact. Then the profits earned often get channelled into the Black Market, or even terrorism, which has been documented.

The biggest obstacle is that, for a lot of folks, there is a perception that counterfeits aren’t a big deal. “It’s a fake bag, so what? No one got hurt.” That’s the kind of justification that often gets used for these inexpensive knock-offs. We don’t feel that way. The reality is, if it's a counterfeit good, it's probably got dangerous chemicals or some other product safety hazard. It was made under conditions that have hurt people, that have polluted the environment. They're not doing all the things necessary to make sure it's a responsible product. They can pocket those profits and then turn around and use them to advance their criminal enterprise, for example. I think part of it is just raising an awareness to both policymakers and consumers that this is a bigger problem that they're realising.

The RealReal counterfeit installation at 301 Canal Street Credits: The RealReal