Posted September 2, 2014

 

Keith Hoover of Under Armour spoke of the black swan theory early in his presentation to the Southern Textile Association during its Summer Marketing Forum recently in Belmont, N.C. The theory, as defined by Wikipedia, is “a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.” Black swan events were introduced by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his 2001 book Fooled by Randomness, which concerned financial matters. The metaphor harkens back to around 1100 A.D., at a time when most thought all swans were white until a black one was discovered in Australia.

 

Hoover, Under Armour’s vice president of material innovation, pointed out a fairly recent black swan event, Chris Sargeant’s discovery of the world’s first large-scale commercial use of digital color specification and communication, which has now become the industry standard. Another black swan event, he posited, was the rapid movement of textile and apparel production from the U.S. In his presentation, “The Phoenix Initiative – Made Here, Made Possible,” Hoover didn’t exactly predict the re-shoring effort of U.S. manufacturing would be another black swan event, but he did use another bird to illustrate his company’s plan to help reindustrialize the U.S. Under the Phoenix Initiative, Under Armour has trademarked “American Armour” featuring an image of a bald eagle that bursts into flames and is reborn as U.S. manufacturing.

 

The concept is ambitious but attainable, and it involves a paradigm shift that integrates the supply chain to create “mega-verticality” and would result in a “lossless transmission of information and direct manufacturing,” Hoover explained. “The goal is to leverage everything a designer does and put it in a format that can be transferred to manufacturing,” he said. (Read this week’s lead story for more information.)

 

Certainly, everyone in the domestic textile and apparel industry complex applauds this type of leadership from a brand owner/retailer. Over the years, we have often felt all alone as an industry trying to solve our many issues, and it’s refreshing to see a customer on that part of the supply chain join us in a mutually beneficial endeavor. It’s also encouraging to hear that Under Armour is working with several textile companies and suppliers to develop a process for creating standardized fabric at any production plant, which would represent a part of its effort to return production to these shores. For this purpose, Under Armour and knitting machine manufacturer Vanguard Pai Lung have organized a consortium of companies – Unifi, Parkdale, Archroma and Navis TubeTex – to work with on developing this process.

 

Under Armour’s plan will take time, Hoover pointed out, but it’s in it for the long haul. He called it a “rare opportunity” to “take the baton” from our industry predecessors and “move forward.” I’m all for this initiative, and I urge all of our industry’s companies to work with other customers and companies – competitors, even – to develop similar strategies for made in America.

 

It sure beats singing our swan song.