How Reflect Studio strives to build the best product through a transparent supply chain

Reflect Studio is a design and manufacturing office focusing on garments and everyday objects. Coming from a clothing brand background, their team learnt by experience the complex, labour-intensive structure of the textiles industry that embodies multiple players, hardship, fast production and most importantly an opaque supply chain. In order to build a transparent supply chain for their products, Reflect Studio had to break the standard and opt for the difficult.

The Industry

Textile, by its nature, involves multi-step manufacturing processes. These include sourcing of the fabrics, yarn and materials, washing, dyeing, printing, finishing, accessory part manufacturing, cutting and sewing, final manufacturing and assembling. The processes are categorized under four tiers. Only a few factories in the world cover all these steps within a single integrated manufacturing plant. There are also some producers which are referred to as tier one manufacturers, who are mainly responsible for cutting and sewing and sub-contract the rest of its production to tier two, three and four, offering its clients a final finished product without the hassle.

The Four Tiers in Textile Manufacturing

Most brands do not want to untangle this multi-step process and work with either integrated manufacturing plans or tier one factories. Such an approach to manufacturing significantly lightens the burden on clothing brands and avoids the management and planning of complex processes. It not only adds to the risk-aversion of the brand but also to the efficiency of the brand’s management, enabling their teams to focus on design, marketing and sales, instead of the burdensome control mechanisms over the production stages. A design is made and placed to the factory in charge of producing it. The only next step is to wait for the delivery of the finished product.

As manageable and easy it may sound, there are few drawbacks in these models of producing that are being brought to light in the last decade. That is the fact that the entire supply chain is a black box. Most brands cannot even track down the whos, whats and wheres of the suppliers they indirectly manufacture at, set aside their working conditions. Thus, a single point of contact in this complex web of manufacturing indicated the existence of hidden players in the background, which are usually small to medium-sized ateliers.

Textile Metropolis

Istanbul — a metropolis emerged as a textile manufacturing hub during 1500’s Ottoman Empire, is still a centre for SME textile manufacturers. The higher cost of labour compared to industrial regions in countries like China, India or Bangladesh made no room for giant manufacturers that cover all tiers above to locate an integrated manufacturing plant in the city. Instead, the city is home to more than tens of thousands small ateliers and stores, some supplying zippers, or fabric, or another embroidery.

Supply Model

As an Istanbul based design and manufacturing office, Reflect Studio thrives to continuously create the best products. They believe the ideal product owes its quality to the best available version of two things: design and manufacturing. According to them, a good product is created when these two factors can speak the same language, within teams that work closely and possess comprehensive knowledge of one another’s field.

Reflect Studio also states that none can be foregone related to these two of services that shape their own value proposition of leveraging brand identities through aesthetic, functional and sustainable products. For design, they invest the majority of their resources to build a creative team that researches, learns and enriches each other through aesthetic and technical skills.

As for manufacturing, the company works with their local SME suppliers. Rather than opting for a tier one supplier, Reflect Studio hand-selected its suppliers itself, ensuring the suppliers' mastery in their respective field and overseeing the entire manufacturing streamline itself.

The Manufacturing Process

When an order is placed and the designs are ready, production sheets are prepared in-house, where the selection of raw materials is conducted together with creative and production teams. The manufacturer's production planner, together with the lead, sources every single item on a garment. For example, considering the multi-step process, producing a zipped sweatshirt necessitates the following ten action plans, which also means working with ten different suppliers, independently.

Within an average of four to six weeks, the Reflect Studio production team of six people (production lead, lead assistant, planner, quality controller, two operation assistants) pursues every single step with the quality controller visiting and checking every single supplier at each stage, covering a total 116 kilometres within the city of Istanbul.

Sustainable work ethics

It is a sure thing for most fashion companies to depend on the third-party certifications for the selection of ateliers and it is not different within Reflect Studio. However, they differentiate with their heart of their basic humane and hundred percent transparent relationship to their suppliers. Their day-to-day operation itself becomes the basis of their transparent supply chain. Weekly visits to their suppliers are the essence of their work, just like the weekly team meetings at the studio.

Developing a person-to-person relationship with their suppliers enables the manufacturing studio to understand their stakeholders' needs and their ways of doing business, offering them not just inspections and payments but lending a hand for their personal or professional needs when necessary, developing custom educational content on fair trade manufacturing or employee safety that fits best their requirements.

The reverse of this relationship is a priority to them as well. As a young company with start-up talents inside, it had cost Reflect Studio a lot of trial-and-error experiences with the judgement of high quality in textile manufacturing. During their early years, it was their suppliers who taught them the tiny details about what makes the stitches impeccable or what procedures should be followed in order to minimize waste. Those who believed in Reflect Studio's growth previously are their top clients now.

With brands drifting in high-speed in the era of fast fashion, the company acknowledges the reason behind settling with a single manufacturer. Such operational choice favours a brand significantly in terms of resource allocation. Notwithstanding, the quality and human cost are high. It is not only because there is the risk of a potential trade-off in product quality but also because it leads to opacity, the fundamental cause of unjust practices in textile supply chains.

Therefore, the commitment of Reflect Studio is to ensure the quality of their products and fair labour practices within transparent supply chains. They believe, despite how cumbersome and arduous it is, opting for in-house supply chain management will lead them to exceptional quality and differentiate accordingly in this highly competitive industry.

A Thank You

Reflect Studio also wants to take that as an opportunity to thank their production team for transforming the creative team’s designs on the screen to their best physical versions and working so diligently in this complex web of manufacturing. Furthermore, the company speaks out a thank you to their suppliers for delivering their best output, for showing support and for always opening their doors for maximum transparency.