After years of declining raw-material prices, clothes firms such as Gap announced profit warnings and saw their shares whacked.
It hopes foreign clothes firms will flock to these high-quality suppliers, leaving the rest to wither away.
One typical example: a factory manager making clothes in El Salvador for a major US clothing firm announced that "blood will flow" if anyone joined a union.
Mentions the partners in the Petrocelli Clothes, Inc. firm: Sam Eisenberg, Tony Petrocelli and Oscar Somerfeld.
The Christian doctor whom Nona Màlia married is described as "majestic, bearded, and taciturn"; Rita, a fellow-student, has "her shabby clothes, her firm gaze, her concrete sadness"; Cesare, one of those morally strong, physically vital men who sustain Levi in time of need, is "very ignorant, very innocent, and very civilized".
When urban teens got bored with Tommy Hilfiger's clothes in mid-1999, the firm's share price plummeted by 85% in a matter of months.
A firm making clothes to sell abroad demands consistent state regulation, reliable transport links and enforceable contracts with suppliers to a degree that a barbershop serving the domestic market does not.
Why a woman of her impeccable proportions would need a girdle is hard to fathom, but women were expected to wear elaborate private garments under their public clothes, not matter how firm and shapely their flesh.
The firm, whose clothes have famously adorned celebrities like Snoop Dogg, has agreed to be purchased by Apax Partners, a private investment company, for $1.6 billion, or $16.80 per share, in cash.
The rise of the internet means these brands now operate online, and have been joined by a host of catalogue-style firms selling clothes, gadgets, gifts and furniture.
