Okay. Just a quick question.
Garment manufacturers have been putting tags into clothing for a very long time. I’m not sure how long, but let’s say at least 100 years, which seems reasonable.
So why is it that the idea of getting rid of a tag in favor of printing directly on the garment took until the 21st century to materialize? I mean, it’s not an earth-shattering innovation, what took so long?
Oh, and if you replace the tag in a t-shirt with a printed-on tag instead, why would you then add a standard tag on the side seam? Doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose — and cost twice as much?
As I recall, some European contries require certain things to be printed on garment tags, and tags to be placed in standardized locations. There’s even some kind of ISO standard out there for the symbols that appear on those tags (e.g., no bleach, machine wash warm, etc.). So if you have some clothes that come from a manufacturer who is selling in countries where those requirements exist, it’s cheaper for them to make them all in the compliant form rather than varying the production to omit unnecessary features for certain batches. So blame the global economy for that tag chafing your lovehandles.