As we reflect upon our successful 25th anniversary year, we’d like to take a moment to thank our valued members and friends for your support, and wish you a happy holiday season. It was a fantastic first year as the United States Fashion Industry Association (USFIA)—and we couldn’t have achieved everything we did without you. In case you missed any of the excitement, here's a recap of some of the key activities and events we covered in this publication.
Under our new name, we continued our work to eliminate barriers to trade. We launched a new Advocacy section on our website, detailing our work on a wide range of trade and customs issues and providing tools for you, our members, to engage on the issues, too. To guide our work, we launched our first-ever U.S. Fashion Industry Benchmarking Study, which surveyed 29 of the largest textile and apparel brands, retailers, and importers. Produced in conjunction with Dr. Sheng Lu of the University of Rhode Island, the study has become the go-to source of data about the industry, and we plan to conduct the survey again next year.
We not only engaged in policy advocacy, but also educated our members through seminars, webinars, and other events. We kicked off the year with our annual seminar in San Francisco, and added two new regional seminars in Columbus and Dallas. These events provided unique opportunities for our members and friends to network with policymakers from U.S. Customs & Border Protection, the Office of the U.S Trade Representative, the U.S. Department of State, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission. (And, in fact, we provided the first opportunity for the industry to hear from the new Deputy Assistant Secretary for Textiles, Consumer Goods, & Materials at Commerce during the annual conference!)
But since our industry is global, we also traveled the globe, bringing our members to events like SOURCING at MAGIC and the Harvard Bangladesh Development Conference, to the China & Asia Textile Forum in Beijing and WTO Public Forum in Geneva. We also brought our members information about sourcing destinations ranging from Egypt and Pakistan, to China and Korea, to the African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA) region.
Finally, we can’t forget to thank our Board of Directors, members, and affiliates who helped make everything possible—and especially our Premier Partner for 2014, KPMG, who provided a wealth of expert information throughout the year, and our Sourcing Partner for 2014, Proexport Colombia (now PROCOLOMBIA), who brought opportunities for you to visit this exciting sourcing destination.
Happy Holidays and Happy New Year! This is the final OFF THE CUFF Member Newsletter for 2014, but stay tuned for exciting news in January!