The women-owned, union-represented apparel company is known for creating high-end products for major design houses. It also makes uniforms for the military — and for Team USA.
On Friday afternoon, 115 garment workers at Ferrara Manufacturing in New York will pause their usual activities to watch the telecast of the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympic Games in Paris.
While 1.5 billion people around the world are expected to view the ceremony, the Ferrara team will be especially attuned to the red, white, and blue of Team USA, whose contingent will be outfitted in Ralph Lauren designed blazers and shirts made by Ferrara Manufacturing at its factory in Long Island City.
“We’ve worked with Ralph Lauren in the past, both for the Olympics and the runway,” said Ferrara Manufacturing Chief Operating Officer Gabrielle Ferrara. “Usually, we do a little bit of a showing here, so we will put it up onscreen so everyone can see the products they made. It is going to be fun to watch it onscreen.”
Ferrara Manufacturing has produced garments from Ralph Lauren designs for the Olympic opening and closing ceremonies since 2014. Along with the opening ceremony uniforms, the company also manufactured and tailored the white racing jackets and flagbearer jackets that Team U.S.A. is set to wear during the closing ceremonies on Aug. 11.
Ferrara Manufacturing has earned a reputation as a high-end tailoring house and apparel manufacturer. The company is the epitome of New York’s finest fashion houses. It is a family-owned, women-owned, union-represented company that creates clothing that is 100% American-made. For its many wholesale customers, apparel materials such as fabric, thread, buttons, and zippers are all sourced from U.S. manufacturers.
Ferrara is not an individual clothing brand, but the company has manufactured garments for popular luxury labels such as Vera Wang, Calvin Klein, Isaac Mizrahi, Christian Francis Roth, and Donna Karan. The company has been doing runway fashion since its inception in 1987.
“We’ve worked with a lot of different types of designers, big brands, small brands and although we’ve worked with Ralph Lauren on some of their projects, we work with quite a few emerging brands as well,” Ferrara said. “Since the ’90s, a lot of brands started becoming more on the design side, so we partner with the design team to figure out the best way to make something, and we actually make it here. This is now very typical of brands partnering with manufacturing rather than have it in-house.”
Ferrara Manufacturing was a mainstay of Manhattan’s famous Garment District for 36 years before moving across the East River to nearby Long Island City in 2023. The Ferrara family purchased a four-story building to house its expanding manufacturing capabilities and future projects. The company now operates out of 50,000 square feet on the first floor, but will soon occupy all four floors when construction is complete.
“The additional floors will include a showroom/manufacturing on one floor, and one of the floors is going to be all sewing,” Ferrara said. “Another floor is going to be an incubator space for startups in the fashion industry to work out of and collaborate with.
“It’s going to be a very manufacturing-focused building and it’s all in the apparel manufacturing, Made in U.S.A. space. It’s not just a home for our business but a real beacon for American manufacturing.”
Ferrara Manufacturing was founded in 1987 by Gabrielle’s parents, Joseph and Carolyn Ferrara, to fulfill Carolyn’s dream of creating the highest quality and best-fitting clothes in the world. Their daughter Gabrielle, after graduating from Barnard College and pursuing a career in ad-tech, joined the business in 2014, eventually becoming COO. A son, Angelo, also came on board to improve the high-tech machinery such as 3D printing, CAD applications, laser cutting and robotic automation.
“There is something really special about what we are doing here which is actually making something, which I think is one of the most fulfilling things you can do,” Ferrara said. “We actually produce something physical and that is so rewarding.”
Another gratifying phase of the business came during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Ferrara family put much of its apparel manufacturing on hold to produce much-needed masks and gowns.
“We saw during the pandemic that there was not a strong industrial base to produce PPE,” Ferrara said. “We saw this as an investment and surge in production capacity. We came together and figured out how to make millions of PPE units and I think through that there was something changing where people are realizing it is important for us to be able to make microchips, cars and also clothing in the United States. If you have a global emergency or pandemic or conflict, we need to be self-sufficient as a country and so for us, we view clothing and our manufacturing capabilities as an essential thing.
“We made masks that went to as far as Alaska. We made the masks for the inauguration in 2021 and President Biden wore our masks. We have many employees that have sons or daughters that are policeman or doctors, so we did special deliveries to them.
“Our strength is making things well, having them perform at the highest level. We tried to step up to the plate here and I think our work was a great example of American engineering ingenuity.”
Ferrara Manufacturing was able to procure U.S. government contracts for its PPE production, and from that relationship the company went on to manufacture jackets for the dress uniforms of all the branches of the U.S. military.
Both Gabrielle and Carolyn Ferrara are majority owners of this women-owned business that employs a much higher percentage of women than men. Employees are members of the Workers United union, a relationship the Ferrara family enjoys.
“We have a very good relationship with the union. It’s been a great partnership,” Ferrara said. “They introduce us to people in the industry and they are very positive.
“We have employees of all different backgrounds, so we are quite diverse. Manufacturing is such a hard industry and it’s very people driven. It’s not like having a bunch of people doing their own thing. You have to get everyone together and do this dance of producing something. I love it.”
Another project that Ferrara Manufacturing is all in on is its apprenticeship program and helping young students learn to navigate the American-made apparel industry.
“There was an article in the Wall Street Journal about Gen Z and how they are wanting hands-on work,” said the 34-year-old Ferrara. “We have apprentice programs with the local colleges, and it is so exciting to see these students and the excitement they have to be in a factory and to actually see the product of what they are making.
“One of my career highlights comes from this program because manufacturing has been so beat up over the years in this country. It’s this new, cool thing.”
Ferrara Manufacturing also runs an internship program that is focused on innovation and will be launching a technical design apprenticeship program and a sustainability program.
“We want people to like working here and that is important because these are really high-skilled jobs that need experience,” Ferrara said. “Our average tenure is about 12 years. We want people to grow through our pipeline because it allows us to work with a much wider range of skill sets.”
The wholesale fashion industry in New York City generates about $98 billion dollars each year. Ferrara Manufacturing is deeply committed to having a big slice of that pie coming from American-made apparel.
“I hope we can realize the vision that we have because we are developing a great program that can lead to reshoring production into our country,” Ferrara said. “When you are a consumer buying from Shein or Temu, yes you are getting a great price, but you see the quality of all apparel declining. Consumers want to know what is going into their clothes, who’s making them, what are the materials and what is the quality?
“We are trying to figure out how to invent and craft with the high skill you need to make beautiful clothes with high technology so that you can make them more efficiently and reshore them into our country.”
The 2024 Paris Olympics will be broadcast on NBC and its affiliated networks beginning at noon on Friday. NBC’s Peacock network will offer live streaming when most Olympic events take place, and the NBC Network will offer tape-delayed coverage on weekday evenings.