Jennifer Taggart's testing gun seems an anomaly in this California Market Center room filled with pink tutus and flowery white baby gowns. She holds a laser gun, called the XRF Analyzer, to a tiny dress and waits.
The scanner beeps: The garment doesn't contain any lead. Its designer sighs in relief.
On Friday, clothing buyers from retail boutiques start pouring into the downtown Los Angeles garment emporium to decide which items to stock. Preparations for the year's first market day are always hectic, but they've been tinged with panic this week.
That's because hundreds of clothing manufacturers from across the country have been scrambling to test their children's garments for lead and anxiously awaiting the results, hoping they comply with a new federal law designed to protect kids from tainted products.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, passed last year, bars the sale of goods aimed at children 12 and under that contain more than 600 parts per million of lead. The law takes effect Feb. 10.
Retail giant Neiman Marcus, the San Diego Zoo and a few small boutiques have already said they won't even look at any children's goods that haven't been certified. The trouble is, many of the independent testing labs around the country are too backed up to return items by the deadline.
Manufacturers also are concerned that retailers will use the law as an excuse to send back previously shipped garments that haven't been selling -- which these days are quite a few.
Many clothing makers say they didn't hear about the law until last month, and now they're busy trying to get everything tested before the deadline.
So as Taggart moves the gun to a blue mother-of-pearl button on the back of a dress, the owner of a Canoga Park company that made it looks on nervously, drumming her fingers on the table.
"We wanted to be proactive," said Yolanda Powers, owner of Cassie's Creations. "If something doesn't pass, we'll have to change it somehow."
The requirements are crippling businesses already struggling in a slow retail climate.
A blow to L.A.'s fashion industry would be another hit to the local economy, affecting jobs in mills and ports as well. Los Angeles County has the nation's highest number of apparel-manufacturing employees, according to the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp., with 56,617 in the second quarter of 2008, the most recent figures available.
