A ‘wild time of delays’: Mara Hoffman on tackling relentless supply chain shocks

To receive the Vogue Business Supply Chain Edit, sign up here. “It’s been a wild time of delays and shutdowns along the supply chain,” Mara Hoffman posted on Instagram at the start of the summer, below a campaign shot of a colourful, smocked dress from a new collection. Like the rest of the industry, the New York-based womenswear brand has suffered from the global supply chain challenges resulting from the pandemic, Russia’s war on Ukraine, and labour issues, and has been forced to adapt its sourcing and distribution model. As the challenges continue, it says some of these changes are likely to be permanent. Some, such as working with an international logistics company to improve its direct-to-consumer channels, are entirely new ways of operating. Others, including choosing fabrics that can be used in multiple products or collections — a practice that can prevent excess fabric from being wasted — are things the brand has always done to some degree, but have been expanded or accelerated. “We are thinking very differently,” says Dana Davis, Mara Hoffman’s VP of sustainability. “Through these past two and a half years, there's been a lot of highs and lows. All this planning goes in and then these disruptions happen and we're all just scrambling to make things work.” Delays are expected to continue: nearly two-thirds of global businesses with international supply chains expect that the disruptions will remain unchanged or grow worse by the end of the year, according to a report last month from global quality control and compliance service provider QIMA. Davis says the biggest challenges are material shortages and the unpredictability of global shipping, including finding space with shipping providers. “It used to be, ‘I have a shipment ready, I'm going to book my space and we have a rough estimate of how long it's going to take.’ It's no longer like that,” says Davis. “One day, you have confirmed space and everything's good to go, and the next day it's like — never mind, that booking was cancelled and we can't find any other space for another week. That has become very hard to manage.” A key solution has been to order materials six to eight weeks farther in advance, and to focus on more versatile options, such as cotton, hemp and Tencel, over niche or seasonal fabrics like jacquard. That way, if a fabric delivery is delayed so long that the garment it was intended for cannot be manufactured and on retail shelves for the appropriate selling season, the brand can choose to scrap the design entirely and repurpose the fabric for another product. It’s a tactic that Davis says Mara Hoffman has always tried to do to some extent, but they’re more aggressive about it now. It comes with challenges, but also some benefits. “It does require us to be more prepared with cash flow, but it gives us the ability to turn product much quicker — and to cut smaller runs and work closely with our domestic manufacturing partners.” (In 2021, 35 per cent of the brand’s manufacturing was domestic, according to the company.) The emphasis on domestic manufacturing is important because it’s one path to circumvent the problem of longer, less predictable shipping times, and shortages of raw materials. It’s a shift Davis thinks will be a permanent one for the brand. Between supply chain disruptions and the spike in brands buying lower-impact materials to help them meet their sustainability goals, supplies of recycled nylon and recycled polyester have been backed up globally. “Lead times there have doubled and in some places tripled, because it's getting the materials, and then because of [Covid] shutdowns, they're behind schedule,” says Davis. Organic cotton, which was in short supply even before the pandemic, has only become harder to source, she adds. Now, Mara Hoffman is working with US-grown organic cotton for the first time, which Davis explains has been a major effort because it “requires building that entire supply chain”. The brand is also working with a farming partner in India to source regenerative organic cotton, and is developing a new, nylon- and polyester-free swimsuit material expected to launch in November, a timeline that was accelerated in response to disrupted supplies of staple materials. Retail strategy pivot Delays in product shipments have caused uncertainty with its wholesale buyers as well, and some have been more flexible than others. Mara Hoffman has 38 stockists globally. “Our wholesale partners are the ones who have to make the decision whether they still want the goods. That to me is the most heartbreaking, if they’re like, ‘Well, it's too late, we don't want it’,” says Davis. In those cases, they have to find a way to sell through that inventory themselves or find another partner to work with. “But, it's pretty hard to find a partner at that late stage in the game, so then we’re just kind of dealing with it,” she says. “Some partners are so understanding and they're like ‘yes, we'll do whatever we can’. And some — I'm sure they're just also struggling, and trying to figure out how their businesses can survive.” The brand has redirected its focus to its direct-to-consumer channels, where purchasing decisions are more reliable and it can more effectively communicate with its customers. DTC currently makes up 70 per cent of annual sales, compared with 30 per cent before the pandemic — and commercial VP Macarena Cifuentes sees this moving towards a ratio of 65 per cent DTC, 35 per cent wholesale as they continue expanding in both channels. With its DTC e-commerce business growing, Mara Hoffman set out to streamline the shopping experience for international customers, which hadn’t been “a very clean or easy experience” before, says Cifuentes. Pricing and taxes on the website would often be presented in a way that would confuse or frustrate international customers, she explains, because tariffs and duties wouldn’t be added until later — surprising them at checkout with a higher price than they’d expected to pay. The brand worked with cross-border logistics partner Global-e to improve the experience. “Now, you can go on the Mara Hoffman site and the price you see on a garment is what you're going to see at checkout — which is very different from what was happening before,” she says. Cross-border e-commerce specialist Global-e has helped them with other aspects of selling internationally, such as tailoring ads to local markets correctly and navigating international pricing — “factors we should take into consideration to have suggested MSRPs [manufacturer’s suggested retail prices] in euros, pounds, whatever it may be.” It is paying off, Cifuentes says. “There were certain regions where we already had strong traffic, and now it's helping convert that customer. Before, the experience wasn't seamless. Now, the people coming to the site are also checking out on the site.” While there’s no sugarcoating how challenging it’s been — with ramifications for everything from where raw materials are sourced to designers needing to think through issues such as potential production delays that they’ve never had to consider before, says Davis — the bright side is that the changes tend to reinforce efforts underway for sustainability purposes. “I think it does work towards a lot of our sustainable ethos. It's really making us narrow down and think through every single thing in a different way than just, ‘is this the most sustainable option?’” says Davis. “We're thinking, ‘OK, do we really need this?’ We're questioning everything much more now.” Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: On the verge of a fast fashion splurge? 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