Why a Fashion Think Tank Keeps Talking About Uniforms
By Alix Coombs
A podcast I recorded with Fashion Roundtable’s founder and CEO, Tamara Cincik is out now –Episode 25 of Placecast, from the Local Policy Innovation Partnership (LPIP) Hub at the University of Birmingham, hosted by Dr Nicola Headlam. We recorded it a couple of months ago as a follow-up to the report we published in April as part of Tamara’s LPIP fellowship, Policy Fragmentation and Place-Based Opportunity in UK Fashion and Textiles.
We interviewed 19 people from manufacturers and trade bodies to local authorities and unions and read a great deal of policy, from local authorities to devolved governments and everything in between. The report found that public procurement is the most significant underused lever for stabilising UK garment and textile manufacturing. Public bodies buy a lot of uniforms and workwear, and if they bought them from UK manufacturers on longer contracts with clearer forecasting, contract sizes that small manufacturers can bid for, and decent payment terms, factories would be able to plan, keep staff and train new ones. Our interviewees were clear that skills loss follows unstable orders, rather than a lack of people who can do the work. As I said on the podcast:
“We’re not speculating that public procurement is the solution. We know it’s the solution because during COVID, the factories that did get awarded public procurement contracts for PPE, hospital gowns, whatever it may be, […] they said that’s the most stable their business has ever been.”
The interviews for the report told the same story.
Part of the problem is the word “fashion.” Tamara’s view is that “you’ve got to stop thinking about the word ‘fashion’ and you’ve got to start thinking about manufacturing.” Creative industries policy looks after design and exports, manufacturing policy looks after capital-intensive sectors, and labour-intensive garment making falls through the gap between them.
Defence is a good example. The UK has signed up to NATO’s target of 5% of GDP by 2035, 3.5% of it on core defence, yet the Defence Industrial Strategy says little about the uniforms worn by serving personnel. Tamara’s question to civil servants is: “Would you want troops wearing clothes [made] by states that you might be at war with?” In her experience, that is usually when the penny drops.
Leicester is a prime example of the impact of offshoring on both industry and community. The city had an estimated 1,000 garment factories in 2020, and since then there have been large-scale closures and job losses, with local evidence pointing to rising food bank use among former garment workers (Business & Human Rights Resource Centre, 2025; Labour Behind the Label and Oxfam, 2025).
Australia is further along, with a 2026 to 2036 National Manufacturing Strategy that puts government procurement at its centre. In the UK, by comparison, the work is being pushed, “by people who are purely passionate about it,” on, “a very lean budget,” as I explained on the podcast.
Nicola ended the podcast by offering us a magic wand and a host of options, ranging from a tabloid front page to half an hour with the Cabinet. Tamara chose a Bill in the King’s Speech. FR is already LOUD about its work, so a front page adds little, and Cabinets change. Legislation lasts.
Have a listen and tell us what you think, particularly if you buy uniforms for a living. And if you do, take a look at our #OnshoreOurUniforms campaign and open letter.