No More Gatekeeping: Will Lasry Unlocks the Secrets of Manufacturing
Gatekeeping is one of the many unfortunate cruxes within the fashion industry. It plagues the entire spectrum of its landscape, and whether you are a style-hungry consumer unable to obtain the latest drops due to hefty price tags artificially ramped up by resellers or a young talent looking to break into the unreasoningly competitive and protective industry, everyone in the industry feels the harrowing presence of gatekeeping.
This reality is never more apparent though than when it comes to the manufacturing of products. To be a designer looking to produce high-quality and affordable garments and footwear both the knowledge and resources needed to do so are so far out of grasp that it is almost impossible to break through. These resources, especially as a designer just starting, are paramount to success yet countless individuals, factors, and hurdles prevent the majority to gain access.
From large brands that are overprotective about their suppliers to individuals that hide this knowledge behind a hefty price tag, it has never been harder to break into the fashion industry despite the access that the internet provides. This toxic relationship that fashion has acquired with gatekeeping is the reality we see ourselves in, but luckily there are individuals that make it their mission to break down these barriers, and one of these people is Will Lasry.
Having gained mass popularity and followers through his unique window into the production industry, Will Lasry gives us the keys to the city when it comes to inside knowledge. Opening doors into the widely unknown, his Instagram page is dedicated to highlighting factories and suppliers that offer the best quality and service. Through this content that covers sectors from beauty to jewellery to fashion and everything in between he has gained a cult-like following of both aficionados and aspiring brand owners.
Having his own brand himself, Will has been through the good, the bad, and the ugly, and now distils this knowledge to the masses. With great power comes great responsibility and will takes it upon himself to use this power for good and enables the brands of tomorrow to do better. From more conscious and ecological production processes to higher quality fabrics with lower minimum orders, the future of the fashion industry looks bright with individuals like Will Lasry informing the next generation.
We had the great pleasure of speaking to the man himself to dissect his experiences, learn all there is to know about factories and production, and even have some juicy stories sprinkled in there in this unfiltered conversation with a true industry expert.
Can you start by introducing yourself and telling us a little bit about what you do?
My name is William Lasry. I am a product designer, and I have a strong background in manufacturing, initially for the clothing industry and now expanding to other industries as well. And my goal on this planet is to make the manufacturing industry a lot more transparent because right now it's very secretive and it's very gatekept. I want to change the world's mentality towards that.
we can see you've built a following unravelling the mysteries of product production and showing where these big companies get their clothing made. What initially sparked your interest to investigate that side of the industry?
So I think I looked at a previous version of myself when I was designing for my brand, WUN-OFF. I had all of these ideas for these very elaborate garments and accessories and so on. But the issue that I kept running into was when it came time to actually get them made, I had no idea how to go about doing that. And I had a lot of friends who had their own brands as well and they were running into the same problem.
My goal was to make the best products possible. But designing is only half the battle. You needed a great partner to develop your products if you wanted to succeed. I didn’t have that. I spent the next years shifting my focus from design to manufacturing. If I had strong factories by my side, I would be well equipped to develop incredible products. So that’s what I did.
You know, I thought if I'm having trouble with manufacturing and all of my friends are having trouble with it too, chances are there's a lot of other people out there who are having the same issue. So I started documenting the factories I would find through content. And I think people appreciated it because it was a really good source of value for them. It was unraveling the mysteries of these industries, these factories that all of these big brands are keeping to themselves.
Aside from your Instagram showcasing some of the best suppliers in the market, you’re also a product designer, what is it about the actual process of the product from design to the factory that you love so much?
Well, I've been designing stuff since I was 12 years old. I remember designing sneakers as if Nike was going to release them. I love the concept of creation, but what I love more is when you create with a purpose. Designing a product that solves a problem and that people use is very fulfilling. I think I just started to chase that. My attachment to product design became deeper when I started learning about the factory side of it. Where should I make these sneakers?
It was pivotal when I became more mature in my design process. I realized that you can't easily make every concept you draw. The best way to go about designing is to figure out the engineering side of it, the manufacturing side of it, and then work backwards and bring that into your design process. So if you know that a certain factory has X specialty materials available, you can design with those materials in mind.
This would be as opposed to designing with a different material in mind all to go to the factory and find out they can’t get access to those materials you had in mind. And all of a sudden, you're designing something that you know is going to be made beautifully. And a big thing I see when I consult for brands is these very elaborate designs for these very complicated garments, but it's impossible to produce them. Or they bring them into production and it costs an absolute fortune to manufacture. And it's just because there's a lack of design with the mentality of who your manufacturer is. So I think that needs to change for sure.
Your bio reads no more gatekeeping. Why is it so important to avoid gatekeeping in production and even more so for the fashion industry?
Maybe this is a little bit ambitious, but I envision a world where the best designers and the best storytellers win, not just the brands that have access to a specific factory that no one else has access to.
So that's why I say no more gatekeeping, because it's like why are we rewarding these brands that have a bad story or aren't designed very well - but because they use the right factory can get a big following - when we can be rewarding smaller, more independent people who have great ideas and are telling a great story with their brand but cannot get access to the right factories.
Do you see products becoming more diverse and more varied if the gatekeeping would stop, if everything was a bit more accessible?
I think there would definitely be more innovation, because giving more people access to something means more ideas are going to come of it, right? So I think it's necessary that gatekeeping ends so that we can get better ideas out there and get better products.
From what you've done on Instagram, have you ever received hate from brands and factories?
Yeah, I receive hate in my comments section all the time. And I don't really read the comments section because of it. I'm sure there's love in there, too. But I've received some backlash from brands, and some people calling me out telling me the information I'm sharing isn't true.
But I have a very strong validation process. I'm very thorough with my work. So fuck the people that have something bad to say. I don't care, because there are a lot of people who I know are benefiting from it.
How do you ensure that the information you spread is completely factual?
So the majority of the time, I try to actually visit the factory. But if that's not a possibility, I'll get in contact directly with somebody who works there. They'll send me stuff from their showroom. And I'll see the brands that they work with. And it's a lot of digging because they're not really supposed to share that information with me. There are a lot of things I'm not supposed to see.
The way it typically works with factories and these big brands is they'll sign an NDA, which will prevent the factory from sharing the contract that they have with the brand. It'll propel that whole mentality of keeping it a secret. But there are always things that slip through the cracks. And I guess I'm doing the detective work to find it. And sometimes, I just have very genuine relationships with these people and they're just straight up with me.
Back to gatekeeping - in what ways does gatekeeping create toxic trends in industries?
I think that because of gatekeeping, there are good factories that are less accessible. You're not going to be able to stop people from producing.
So if they can't use a good factory, chances are they're going to use a factory regardless to make what they want. This means they're going to work with factories that oftentimes could have terrible working conditions, child labor, and slavery - not ethical at all - and turn around a very bad quality product.
By supporting these factories, we're pushing worse products into the world, which is just making the fashion industry more toxic. It’s overall detrimental for the industry and the world.
Apart from individuals like yourself, how do we overcome some of these barriers to gatekeeping in production? What could some of these factories or some of these brands do in order to alleviate some of these problems?
I don't think brands should be scared to share which factories they work with. I believe it's more the responsibility of the brands than the factories, because the factories are terrible at marketing.
They don't know how to promote themselves, and oftentimes they don't have a following. However, brands, before even being clothing brands, they're primarily marketing agencies that just so happen to sell clothing.
So they're the ones building the following, or they're the ones getting eyeballs on their stuff. So it should be up to them to disclose where their stuff is made. And I think we're seeing a lot of initiatives where brands are saying, oh, this is 100% organic cotton. But where is it from? Show me where that was made. Get into the factory, so I really know what's going on.
And it just seems like brands protect these factories like it's their IP. But it isn't. And if people find out where that factory is, they're going to want to use it as well to make great products. And these brands are scared of that because if somebody comes along with better ideas and uses the same factory, they're going to get kicked out. It's a very competitive industry.
But I also think brands that do find a good factory and are very ethical, are usually the brands that are open with it. So I think of a brand like story MFG. They're super transparent with their production. I think it really runs along their ethos and their brand vision. That's the future. I know using top notch factories is a more expensive way of producing more often than not. But I think with the way the market and the world's going, people get behind products like that more.
Why do you personally feel transparency, especially in production, is so important, both from an ethical perspective and also just industry-wise? Why is it so important and why are you pushing this so much?
Because I hate crappy products. I think that especially now in the last three years, there are about 18 million clothing brands that were born during COVID. I don't know what happened, but one day, I opened up my Instagram Explore page, and there were 9 million brands. So it's just like, how can I validate any of this? I don't know what I'm getting.
And nowadays, we're not buying products in-store anymore. Everything's happening online. So I want to know a lot more about the product I'm buying if I'm not able to touch it and feel it. We shouldn't be supporting products that are made in bad conditions. And the funny thing is a lot of the time, the brands that are putting out these products don't even know that they're being made in bad conditions.
I'm sure a lot of people often speculate about high-end luxury brands. There's lots of stigma saying, just because the brand is more expensive, it must be better quality. From your experience, is that the case?
So it really depends on the brand. Like Louis Vuitton will sell a million of those handbags that have the outer shell in brown with a lighter brown monogram on it. So that's made of a cheap coated leather that they've developed. But that fabric is garbage. It's really cheap, really, really bad quality, bad for the environment. And millions of people are wearing it thinking it's great quality.
But at the same time, you can go through other Louis Vuitton products that are actually good quality. Their workwear is good quality. They're using good fabrics made in Italy and so on. Brand image is always going to inflate price points. That's the reality.
There are very few brands that have a price point that's correlated with the quality, you know? Especially amongst these high fashion brands. Like Balenciaga stuff is produced in the same factory as streetwear brands that are selling t-shirts for a 10th of the price, you know?
Can you kind of go into some of the worst things you've discovered about certain brands and their manufacturing process, or just the industry in general?
Honestly, nothing really, because for sure, there's bad stuff out there, but my research is mostly focused on the good.
So with my page, I have two options. I can either go the route of bashing all the bad factories. And truthfully, I bet you that content would perform better. But I'm not a negative person. My vision is to share the good factories and then have more people use those so that fewer people use the bad factories by proxy. So I've discovered a lot of good by choosing not to focus on the bad.
So, we can see you're currently in Japan on a factory tour, discovering the best ones out there. How's the experience been so far?
So Japan is an absolutely fascinating country when it comes to manufacturing. I think that a lot of people overseas are very interested in having a product that is made in Japan. The “Made in Japan” stamp has become very glamorous over the years as we're seeing a lot of superpower brands from Japan make some of the highest quality products. And I personally believe Japan to be one of the top three countries in the world to manufacture clothing in and even products in general. So coming out here has been absolutely fascinating because every single person I meet that works at a factory is an artisan.
Like, if they're sewing, if a seamstress is sewing, she's been doing that for the last 25 years. She would not be allowed to, for the factory, unless she's been doing it for that long. And they are pulling out these hyper-sophisticated sewing techniques. I've seen, you know, Burberry jackets that are being turned around at an $8,000 retail. The manufacturer is charging $350 just for the sewing job, you know, that's a factory in Tokyo. I'm seeing, you know, insane stuff with Sacai, with CDG, with Visvim, with Kapital.
These manufacturing techniques are so, so time-consuming. Am I even gonna say advanced? Because a lot of it's very old school and traditional, but just so time-consuming and so specialized that I've never seen before and I'll never see anywhere else in the world.
So the experience in Japan's been fascinating because it's taught me a lot about manufacturing. I'm understanding it a lot better. But at the same time, there's a dark side to it. So the dark side of it is that it's very, very gatekept, and right now I'm making a video that's gonna be released on my YouTube that explains why Japan gatekeeps its factories from the rest of the world.
I think there are a few factors that are at play here. And it seems like a big one is they're at capacity because there's an ageing population in Japan, so a lot of the workers are either dying or retiring. So factories are shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. Costs are going way up. Costs of raw materials have been going up across the world in general.
They have contracts, existing contracts with big brands and those get prioritized over anyone else. So to get into a factory, it's nearly impossible. There's a year-long or a two-year waiting list.
And let alone the fact that, you know, Japanese people for the most part only want to deal amongst themselves. They don't speak any English for the most part. So if you're a foreigner, it's very difficult to sort of break bread and get into these factories. It's very hard to get a visit. They're super secretive. And if I didn't have what's called a fixer, I wouldn't be able to do this.
A fixer is something you need in Japan in order to visit factories. It's a middleman who introduces you to a factory directly. To do business with pretty much any factory in Japan, you need to meet them in person. I recommend bringing a gift. And you know, it's traditional. You sit down first for 30 minutes. You guys talk. You make small talk and big talk. And then after a while, they'll decide, okay, we're going to let you see our operation. That's when you get to see some pretty wild stuff. I've seen some of the most insane brands be manufactured here. So I was really blown away.
Could you list your favorite places you've visited in Japan so far?
So I think Kojima was pretty wild. Kojima is like the denim capital of Japan. They have a denim street. Like right now I'm wearing a pair of Kapital denim, which is a pair of jeans they just developed called Century Denim. And I was actually with a person who developed these jeans. And Kojima is where all of that stuff is made. You have Momotaru jeans that have been around forever. I think Kurabo as well is in Kojima. And then like all the big Japanese brands you see around the world. So Naked & Famous, Nudie Jeans, Big John, you name it. It's mostly made in Kojima.
I'm a big denim guy and going there was really, really cool because you have all of the traditional weaving machines that are weaving the denim together, traditional indigo dyeing techniques that have been mastered. And you have these guys that are masters of their craft.
Like they've taken the 10,000-hour rule and done it tenfold, you know? These people are called Takumi. They’ve really mastered what they do. So it's really cool to see and you can justify the retail price of the jeans when you see all of this behind the scenes stuff. And you also understand why it's gonna last you a hundred years.
Kind of off-topic, but we're huge foodies. What's been the best food in Japan that you've had so far?
Ooh, that's a really good question. I've been all over Japan. I feel like every region has its specific thing. The Okonomiyaki in Osaka was absolutely insane. I had a sushi experience in Fukuoka which was crazy.
So I’m traveling with my buddy and we stumbled into this little sushi spot and it turned out to be an omakase. And we're like, “oh, could we come sit?” And they're like, “oh no, we're closing, we're closing.” And we were very hungry. We did what you're never supposed to do in Japan. We insisted. We were polite about it though. And they said yes! We went in there and hit it off with the chef and waitress. We ended up spending four hours drinking and eating with everyone inside the restaurant. It was run by this couple. The wife was the waitress and spoke a little bit of English. The chef was the husband. And they were like this wild couple.
They were with this other couple, one of which is a photographer who showed us a picture he took of Kim Jong-un and Dennis Rodman naked popping champagne in North Korea. The chef ended up breaking out bottle after bottle of sake. And they were giving us all this free sushi, giving us puffer fish, all this stuff turned out to be an insane experience. And at the end of the night, the guy brings us the bill and we were expecting to pay like a few hundred bucks. And it was like $35. And we go, “what, why?” And he didn't charge us for anything. He's just like, “we love you so much”. Like, “we're so happy you guys came.” They kept it open till like 2 a.m. Oh, and we went back the next day and did it again.
So, you also designed for your own brand, WUN-OFF. How is all the knowledge that you've gathered from all these factories distilled into your own brand then?
That's a great question. I think the biggest turning point for me was when I developed this fleece that we did. It was called the wun-off day trading fleece. And I spent six months developing that myself in Montreal, my home city. And I think I had 26 different people involved and I was running around in my car with rolls of fabric. I ordered some polartec and other fabrics. Did this, that, the next thing. And at the end of the process, I had driven around so much. I had burned so many kilometers on my car. I had spent so much money on the project. And all of that just to develop this fleece. And the fleece was beautiful. Like, I was very happy with it, but I said, what the hell am I doing? I can't be doing this for six months every time I wanna make a single product.
So, I realized I can never do this again. I need to find a better situation. So, that's when I started seeking factories a lot more. And we realized this was a much better way to go because I was able to just send a tech pack to the factory they just sent me back a sample. I made my corrections and life went on. It was just a much better way to do things because, without that, I would have to spend a year of my life developing any product.
So, how did it distill into my brand? I consider the quality barrier for my brand to be very, very high. So, I made sure to find factories that can meet those norms and those standards. And I distilled it into the products that I made.
So, what's next for you? Have you ever thought about going even deeper, kind of discovering these brands, like digital agencies or creative agencies, or are you kind of just sticking to the product side?
I'm mostly sticking to manufacturing. And right now, I'm starting a couple of projects and I'm toying with the name. But I think I'm gonna call it Glass Factory. Glass Factory is gonna be a website that is gonna compose of all the factory information I have on my page and a lot more.
But the idea is that it's gonna become a community. So, I want people to essentially submit factories they've worked with and submit products that those factories have made for them and start a dialogue around that, you know?
And start turning people from this mentality of, “oh, we should keep our factories a secret” to “let's share it with everyone”. And maybe they can be rewarded for sharing it, you know? We can figure out a system where they get a commission from the factory.
But I wanna build this community around making manufacturing more transparent and ending the gatekeeping. And I wanna list all of the relevant brands on my website and put all of their factories. And then eventually, I wanna roll it into a thing where we have a Glass Factory verification. So, somebody like myself or someone from my team would actually go into the factory every year and verify and make sure it's up to our standards and conditions.
So that's one of two things that I'm working on now. The other thing that I should share is I'm actually in the process of launching my own blanks brand. Blanks meaning clothes that brands can purchase to print or embroider on. What’s different is that you can customize the blank according to any color you want, and also choose a finishing.
So if you want, an enzyme silicon wash to have that vintage look, if you want, a potassium spray to give it that more uneven edge look, you could do all of that. And it's all gonna be 100% organic and Made in Los Angeles in collaboration with this factory, Dominion, that are good friends of mine. They work with Nocta, Yeezy, Nike and a bunch of other brands. They knit everything in-house, cut, sew, die, everything, from A to Z.
And so I'm gonna be launching that, and it's gonna be, like, a hoodie first, and then eventually we're gonna pivot into t-shirts and other products. But the goal is to become, like, a sort of Nike ID for blanks, right? And it's gonna be customized to exactly what you want.
And the way we're gonna promote the whole thing, by the way, in keeping theme with transparency is we're gonna go in the factory and film the entire process. We're gonna film the whole production. We're gonna show all of the knitting, cutting and dyeing, everything. So people are gonna know exactly what they're getting.
Finally, for anyone starting their own brand right now, what advice would you give them?
I'd say the biggest piece of advice is to ask yourself why your brand deserves to exist. And it's not in a pessimistic sense at all, but I think that the clothing market is super oversaturated. And if your clothing brand is going to exist, ask yourself why it deserves to exist, what's your story, what's your “why”? What are you doing in this world? Are you just gonna be another clothing brand that's gonna consume fabric and color and product and just put stuff out there that we've already seen with the same style of design that's relevant now and won't be relevant in a few years?
Or are you somebody that has a very strong driving story, a foundational base, a community-built brand that's gonna advance some sort of facet in the world? And I think that's what people fail to understand: a clothing brand is more a story and a marketing agency than it is a clothing brand. You need to have a strong story in order to make it in this world.
That'll drive what content you make to promote your brand, that'll drive your design decisions for your product, and that'll drive what kind of manufacturing you choose to do. That'll drive your price point, it'll drive consumer behavior, it'll drive community. So all of these things are driven by the story. Story is very important for a brand and I think it's completely overlooked.
Text and Interview by Joe Goodwin
