Leaving these replies here because the addition is misleading when it comes to factory production:
Worth noting that most of Rowanrightalong's additions apply mostly to home-sewn garments. A lot of the steps they mention are actually autom
Worth noting that most of Rowanrightalong's additions apply mostly to home-sewn garments. A lot of the steps they mention are actually automated already (ex. cutting) or simply not needed (ex. pinning) because the sewers are just THAT good. However, most clothes are still made individually by human sewers who are absolutely underpaid and highly skilled. While some patterns are repetitive enough and in demand enough that they could be more automated, in general humans still outperform robots in areas where there is a lot of variation in the specific steps (for ex. a factory might specialize in athleisure wear, but its employees might be asked to make anything from pants to shirts to bras in different styles and from different fabrics depending on the contract)
my partner worked in a factory and even in more automated settings there is still SO MUCH HUMAN INPUT and the actual work expectations and h
my partner worked in a factory and even in more automated settings there is still SO MUCH HUMAN INPUT and the actual work expectations and hours are also insane and laborious - even more so for fast fashion
In a factory setting, much of the cutting, etc. is automated to some degree, and pinning is often not done for the sake of speed. Fabric is cut in huge stacks (ever wonder why the same size of the same garment can sometimes vary? such as two pairs of the same style of pants, both size M or whatever, being a bit different? fabric is stacked up and cut in stacks and the size isn't consistent when cutting the top vs the bottom, bigger stacks = much faster and cheaper to produce, but also means more variation) rather than in individual layers. Sometimes things are cut individually for really fussy pieces on expensive garments. Sometimes it's done by hand but in big stacks on basically bandsaws or with electric handheld cutters. Sometimes it's mostly automated by CNC, laser machines (used for synthetics when they want a sealed edge), die cut (mostly when stamping out a bunch of the same piece, like shoes), or water jet cutters. All of these are still very labor intensive, and they need to be loaded by hand, often the fabric needs to be laid out in stacks by hand, most of the methods are cut guided by hand, etc.
A lot of people also don't realize that "sewing machine" doesn't mean "not handmade" since the machine automates making the stitches, but a human must guide the fabric, choose the stitches, place the stitches where they need to go, match up the pieces, etc. A lot of big factories will have one person doing the same seam of the same garment over and over all day, and then handing it off to the next person for the next seam (or set of seams).
There are a very very few very specialized machines that can automated the sewing process, but these usually do one very specific thing, such as hold a bag to sew on the straps. They still need to loaded by -- you guessed it -- humans. There is nothing that can sew a whole garment, only one very tiny component that doesn't require much handling and is done over and over the same way each time (such as the bag example).
So why can't sewing be automated? A few main issues here. One is that the fabric needs to be held in a certain way while being sewn. The pieces need to be held together properly (what home sewists use pins for), but pinning would take a lot of time (aka cost a lot of money) and pins would probably harm whatever hypothetical machine being used. Even if that was possible to automate, then there's the issue of tension. Sewing is very much skilled work, and knowing how to hold the fabric so it has the correct amount of tension on it (especially when sewing stretch materials) -- not too little and not too much -- so that the stitches turn out correctly is a skill. Easy for a human, but configuring a machine to do this and to change it for every material type and even different seams within the same garment would be difficult.
Another issue is that most garment factories aren't producing the same item over and over. Yes, there may be a factory owned by a specific brand and they specialize in one type of item (such as jeans). However, even in this case, there are multiple styles of jeans, multiple fabric types, multiple sizes of jeans, etc. Any automated machine would need to be configured in a way that allows for these variations. Most factories, though, are contracted for a run of garments, produce them, and then are contracted for another run of different garments, sometimes by a different company. These would require retooling on a massive scale between runs, and no one has time or money for that. Yes, they are producing hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of garments at a time, but that type of scale is still not big enough to justify retooling an entire factory for the next run. Of course, we still run into the issue of different sizes of garments, different materials, etc. Even if it's a run of, say, bras, sewing a 32A and a 32DD would require different considerations, and if they are well designed, the 32DD would have extra structure for support that would create extra steps. In between 32A and 32B, for example, the machines would need to be reset in a way that allows for them to sew at a different location for the different size. Now think about that for 32 A - DD (five sizes) and then 34 - 38 bands (so four different band sizes times five different sizes equals twenty sizes total, and that's a SMALL range), and then there's the issue of sewing on the decorations like the tiny bows in front, the fact that the pink style might have a tiny bow while the blue style (same cut!) might have a tiny flower instead, etc. etc. You get the picture.
The technology isn't there to sew even one bra fully automated, but even if it was, unless the machines could somehow adjust themselves (remember that even the most automated of cutting typically works with CNC, so the machine needs to be told exactly where to cut each time, and automated sewing would likely work on similar principles), it would be far more expensive than having a human do it, since they can do this by sight and feel very intuitively. (Whether those people are paid enough is a totally separate question! The answer is usually no.)
Factories prioritize speed, since it's cheaper. There's luxury items that prioritize quality (prioritizing branding is a different thing -- I'm talking about things like Hermes bags that are legitimately that expensive based on the labor and quality control), and different brands balance speed and quality differently.
(Slight aside, but this is why the "such and such cheaper thing is made in the same factory as such and such expensive thing" line always bothers me, since it's not telling the whole story. Yes, often multiple brands of things are made in the same factory, but that doesn't mean the cheaper one is always going to be the same quality or that the more expensive one is a ripoff. The factory and the people in it are capable of making both cheaper and more expensive things! There's cost-cutting measures that can be taken, even if it looks the same on the outside! Different materials, different finishes and construction methods, not adding as much structure/interfacing/facings/etc., using cheaper notions or fewer notions like buttons or buckles or leaving out things like a hook and eye at the top of a zipper, cutting fabric in those larger stacks, less quality control, etc.)
Now I'm thinking about human touch by Juliet Seger, where the artist dips her hands in ink in order to show everywhere a garment is touched in order to make it:
There was also a lot of buzz several years back about a machine that can sew a T shirt fully automated. The thing is? We haven't heard anything about it since about a decade ago for a reason. It doesn't work great, and can only make one very simple garment. Anything more complex than a T shirt is right out.
So yes, all clothing is made by humans! It's different in a factory setting because of economies of scale, the machines used, the skilled labor involved, the assembly line, etc., in addition to all of the issues of underpaid labor (a HUGE issue, might I add), but everything you wear has been touched many times by human hands in making it.
Of course, I may get some of this wrong (I'm not in the industry but I've done a lot of research and was a fashion design major oh so many years ago before I switched haha) so feel free to correct anything!
