Garment Industry Southern California

After 20 years in the mercurial surfwear business, it takes something special to impress Tom Noble. Something like the line of surf and casual wear that Irvine's Stussy Design unveiled at an apparel industry trade show here last weekend. Stussy's line, which incorporates plaids, stripes and denim, is "not (traditional) surfwear but it's what the customers want," said Noble, president of Newport Surf & Sport, a specialty store.

In a groundbreaking effort to crack down on widespread abuses in Southern California's garment industry, the federal government and Guess? Inc. have reached an agreement designed to eliminate labor law violations by the company's estimated 100 contractors. U.S.

When Doug Bunting stopped stocking wet suits in his Equipe surf shop, it was viewed by purists as the moral equivalent of banishing hot dogs from a baseball stadium. Bunting didn't stop there. He relegated his surfboards to an out-of-the-way corner and refitted his store to downplay its surfing roots. The music wafting through his Laguna Beach emporium was changed from contemporary rock to a more ethnic mix of rap and hip-hop.

When Doug Bunting stopped stocking wet suits in his Equipe surf shop, it was viewed by purists as the moral equivalent of banishing hot dogs from a baseball stadium. Bunting didn't stop there. He relegated his surfboards to an out-of-the-way corner and refitted his store to downplay its surfing roots. The music wafting through his Laguna Beach emporium was changed from contemporary rock to a more ethnic mix of rap and hip-hop.

R.H. Macy & Co.'s Monday filing for bankruptcy protection from its creditors didn't come a moment too soon for Francine Browner, a $100-million-a-year apparel maker in the City of Commerce. Browner was sitting on nearly $200,000 worth of spring fashion orders from Macy's, wondering if she should deliver them and risk not being paid, or refuse to ship and incur the wrath of one of her most important clients. It's a decision Browner no longer has to make.

The Assembly on Monday approved a bill that would crack down on the latest proliferation of garment industry sweatshops in Orange and Los Angeles counties by making designer-name garment houses responsible for child labor and overtime abuses committed by their independent suppliers. The bill, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-West Los Angeles), was introduced in March after a series of articles in The Times revealed that many independent contractors run sweatshops paying as little as $1.

For years, state and federal labor officials have been trying to police Southern California's unruly garment industry. And for years, the sweatshops have been winning. Now, after discovering a new pocket of Vietnamese-owned sweatshops in Orange County's Little Saigon--and an age-old set of wage, hour and child labor abuses--federal authorities in the county have taken a new tack.