Unrest leaked into the fifth straight day of protests in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday after a weekend of immigration enforcement raids in parts of Los Angeles County.
The demonstrations were set off after a Friday morning Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid of apparel importer Ambiance Apparel in downtown’s Fashion District, which was swiftly condemned by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Business owners in Bunker Hill, the Jewelry District and other parts of downtown spent Tuesday boarding up windows before a last-minute curfew was implemented for 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. by Bass. Even after the curfew start, some demonstrators continued to march in downtown as parades of Los Angeles Police Department vehicles seemed to play a slow-moving cat-and-mouse game overtaking blocks with the sound of helicopters and LAPD vehicle sirens.
Mounting tension and political rhetoric has taken front stage in what will ultimately hold long-term implications for Los Angeles’ Fashion District and overall garment workforce in what’s already a fragile economic ecosystem. That was further compounded as some took the opportunity to break into downtown retail stores Sunday and Monday evenings, impacting Jordan, T-Mobile, Adidas, Apple and CVS.
The Garment Worker Center, which advocates on behalf of the city’s apparel workers, said at least 20 garment workers were detained in the Fashion District raid.
“In addition to day laborers being targeted and detained, two apparel companies were also targeted,” the group said.
It went on to add that such activity does nothing but “stoke fear and chaos,” holding a “chilling effect on our communities.”
With Los Angeles’ garment industry already in contraction over the past several years, what the past five days’ activities may hold for the labor force of an already weakened Fashion District ecosystem is ripe for review.
Economic Disruption
The over 100-block Fashion District neighborhood in downtown has been home to apparel wholesalers, textile vendors, accessories companies, sew houses, retail stores, showrooms and other fashion-related businesses.
Otis College reported a nearly 36 percent decline in fashion industry employment in Los Angeles County from the end of the third quarter of 2024, when there were 57,629 jobs, compared to the first quarter of 2010.
In fact, in an overall study of Los Angeles’ creative industries, the annual Otis College Report on the Creative Economy, which was most recently released in March, found that the creative sector’s job losses were led by fashion, creative goods and products and traditional media companies.
Last year alone, the fashion industry lost over 2,600 jobs in Los Angeles, the report said. Across California, the fashion industry loss 16,591 jobs over the past five years and over 4,800 in the last year.
Patchwork of Problems
Like anything, the industry’s declining payrolls aren’t attributable to one factor. It’s been a confluence of several.
Declines in manufacturing and wholesale businesses are partially to blame for a 6 percent drop in employment specifically in the Fashion District between 2022 and 2023, according to a report released late last year on the neighborhood done by Beacon Economics, Los Angeles Economic & Workforce Development Department and the LA Fashion District.
There’s also the rash of retail theft after the passage of Proposition 47, which didn’t allow for prosecution of thefts on items worth less than $950 unless the defendant had a prior record.
The lack of affordable housing and homelessness further add to the district’s challenges, the Beacon report said.
All that’s been happening against a backdrop of increasing wages. The city began its tiered rollout of minimum wage increases July 1, 2021. That first date brought the minimum wage to $15. In the four years following, the wage has increased and now sits at $17.28 in the city.
Zooming out further, as the media and politicians focus on the immediate reactions, the slow chipping away of the garment industry and broader downtown economies continues in the shadow of scenes of cars burning and flash-bang grenades.
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