Bret Schnitker, Emily Lane
September 29, 2026
Bret Schnitker 00:02
This is not going to be a minor el nino. This is going to be a pretty massive one.
Emily Lane 00:15
Welcome to Clothing Coulture, a fashion industry podcast at the intersection of technology and innovation. I'm Emily Lane,
Bret Schnitker 00:23
and I'm Bret Schnittker. We speak with experts and disruptors who are moving the industry forward, and discuss solutions to real industry challenges.
Emily Lane 00:31
Clothing Coulture is produced by Stars Design Group, a global design and production house with more than 30 years of experience. A storm is coming, and before it hits, we thought you meet you here, right at the bar. Welcome to Bar Talks. This is our quick hit series from Clothing Coulture, where we tackle urgent issues that are shaping our industry. Today, we are unpacking El Nino, one of those climate events that can tear through agriculture, manufacturing, transportation, and ultimately the apparel business. The weather might seem far removed from fashion, but as we all know, everything from cotton crops and factory operations to shaping shipping routes and consumer buying patterns, all of this can be affected by what happens in the atmosphere. So let's spend a few minutes talking about El Nino, what you should know, and what this means to our industry. Okay, Bret, let's just start at the very basics here. El Niño, what really is it, and and what should we know just from if basics of what to expect this early 2027?
Bret Schnitker 01:53
El Nino is a weather pattern when the airflow shifts from east to west, the Pacific Ocean and the currents kind of warm up, and then that creates this kind of weather pattern that can affect the globe. There are basically four boxes floating: two kind of outside of the waters of Peru, and two in Central Pacific. And those are the ones that everyone talks about: box three and four. And it monitors surface water temperature, and there's a combination of atmospheric and isotherm temperatures, and all these things that go along with that. But basically, when the surface water temperature increases a half a degree Celsius, they declare an El Nino becomes an effect, and the wild thing is the latest. Like we're in El Nino, everyone's like, "Hey, you know what's going to happen when El Nino shows up? The Weather Service declared El Nino officially in place as of June of this year.
Emily Lane 02:58
Okay,
Bret Schnitker 02:58
so it's kind of already impacting, and how did they know? Well, in monitoring these boxes in the Central Pacific, when the temperatures rose more than a half degree Celsius, they started monitoring this because this is a challenge. The crazy part of it is the temperatures are. Different studies have said different things, but at least two and a half degrees Celsius over the norm.
Emily Lane 03:28
Okay.
Bret Schnitker 03:29
So, and some are saying up to three or four degrees is where they're thinking that's happening. That indicates not just an El Nino. That indicates the El Nino super El Nino that has been unprecedented in history, a two and a half degree increase in Celsius in those areas indicated super El Nino that we haven't seen since the 1950s.
Emily Lane 03:52
Okay,
Bret Schnitker 03:52
but it running up three to four degrees is extremely concerning. The little nuance to this is they track the increase in temperature, this half a degree Celsius to indicate El Nino, based upon averages that that water has been over the last number of months. It has risen from the net from between 1915 and 1991. The temperature of the water has risen, so it actually makes the increase that's already kind of unprecedented. It softens the impact because the water temperature's already risen.
Emily Lane 04:34
Okay.
Bret Schnitker 04:36
So when you add the increase in water temperature and then the two and a half to 3% Celsius increase, we're in for quite a ride.
Emily Lane 04:44
Yeah, because the last time we had an El Nino was what? When was this? It was not that long ago.
Bret Schnitker 04:50
No, and
Emily Lane 04:51
it was
Bret Schnitker 04:51
yes,
Emily Lane 04:52
and it was a fairly substantial hit environmentally. Like we, the the numbers of hundreds of 1000s of birds died. And coral reefs died, fish died, and
Bret Schnitker 05:03
weather events all over the all over the world, really. And you know we're seeing very interesting weather patterns that are happening. Tornadoes in the south of France, where there's never been that I know of a tornado before. We're seeing you know unprecedented droughts. We're seeing crazy rain amounts of rain that are occurring, and so
Emily Lane 05:24
melting ice creating mudslides.
Bret Schnitker 05:26
Yes, yeah, and these are all things that are precursors for what's what's to come.
Emily Lane 05:36
Just a kind of an interesting side note here: El Nino, at its base of what that word means, doesn't it mean something like the baby or
Bret Schnitker 05:45
it was kind of a play to the yeah the the Christ child, because I think the term originally was kind of driven from a South American kind of base off Peru and that and Argentina.
Emily Lane 05:59
Okay, that is really fascinating. So, okay, so we know we are in for some extreme weather. So, let's talk about what that means to crops, cotton, fiber, like the the very the very foundation of apparel.
Bret Schnitker 06:15
Yeah, it means different things to different parts of the world, and people are tracking this. You know, you can't. You do your best to predict the impact of weather around the world, but we're already starting to see some of the impacts. And as we know, El Nino strengthens, the impacts only get worse. So let's look at the two major producing countries that we talk about a lot: India and China. India is already 14 and a half percent deficient in water as a country.
Emily Lane 06:49
Right.
Bret Schnitker 06:50
Already.
Emily Lane 06:51
Yes.
Bret Schnitker 06:51
There are over 300 different sectors that they say are 45% deficient. The temperatures have already escalated far higher than it's been in the past, and so and with
Emily Lane 07:05
1.5 billion people, that's a lot of people.
Bret Schnitker 07:09
5,000,000,001.5,
Emily Lane 07:11
Yes, and you consider you know some of India's key outputs, you know technology, data centers, those kinds of things, high energy, water consumption. You look at apparel, water consumption, water consumption. So
Bret Schnitker 07:28
high energy needs, and and that's what our job is, is to try to determine which regions are going to get hit, how we manage through those things, what the impact's going to look like, and so for India, when you look at drought conditions, water is going to become a precious resource. Crops are going to be drier. So therefore, our estimate is is that the cotton crop is going to be challenged in India, and it's one of the larger producing cotton crops in the world. Right, and so we think the drought conditions are going to affect the cotton crop. One,
Emily Lane 08:04
so prices will go up, accessibility will go down.
Bret Schnitker 08:07
Absolutely, other areas might pick it up, but we know in that region we've also got Pakistan as a cotton-producing crop. Right, I think it's going to be impacted in that region also.
Emily Lane 08:17
Right.
Bret Schnitker 08:18
Then when water becomes more of a precious resource where people are trying to manage
Emily Lane 08:24
flooding in Pakistan. Right,
Bret Schnitker 08:26
there has been where
Emily Lane 08:28
you've got drought in India, yet flooding in Pakistan. Well, you talk
Bret Schnitker 08:31
about flooding, so the prediction for China specifically is sort of a little bit of the opposite. They anticipate wetter than normal conditions. We're already starting to see that we've been through two typhoons already that have delayed production and delayed shipping, and I think that they should be prepared. That everyone should be prepared that China is going to be struggling with floods, typhoons, you know, heavy heavy rain conditions. So the country is going to kind of be the opposite there, and that has its own impacts. You know, shutdowns of production, shutdowns of roads and infrastructure, flooding that will devastate a lot of different things. On the other side, you know, they've got their own large cotton crops. The the the regions that the cotton production is is in will typically be drier. The question is, is will it provide more range? The crop will become more of a booster crop. In some of the drier regions, we also know that there's some challenges in China with the U.S. because of the Uyghur situation, where about 80% of the crops are being grown. So that's something to watch for. Which
Emily Lane 09:38
we did do a bar talk on that a little while ago. So if you're interested in learning more about that specific issue, we we do have it in our library.
Bret Schnitker 09:45
So I would tell you that the conditions are impactful in a number of different ways, and we just need to be watching those conditions closely. If we backtrack to India, I think a lot, like you're saying, you know, a lot of. Production requires water. Things like that might shut down cotton production. India is embracing synthetics at a massive rate to try to keep up with the rest of the world. Does that further exacerbate the synthetic production? Because hey, we're not going to have enough cotton, and we're not going to be able to wash and launder as much, so these are all things to watch. And then, with unprecedented heat and lack of water, factory times and production times will be impacted. People won't be able to work during the heat, the excessive heat. There might be water shortages. You combine that with the global conditions politically. Well, you'll have rolling blackouts, but you also have this political condition where the U.S. is pushing India not to buy precious oil from Russia right now, and so when you have transportation issues, you have political conditions, you have El Nino combined. I think these major producing areas are in for a big challenge, for sure.
Emily Lane 11:06
So, basically, the moral of the story is watch the weather, longer lead times, right? I feel like this is a common conversation we have with disruptions. It's like you just got to plan for the worst a little bit.
Bret Schnitker 11:19
Our industry is always managing crazy things, right? And I think a lot of industries that that operate globally do. The other thing to really kind of think about really is the impact in the U.S. Years ago, when I was a sweater buyer, it was the most I don't know the most challenging category because when you bought sweaters for the U.S. it was about a six to eight week season, and we'd buy, I don't know, hundreds of 1000s of sweaters, and we were always told as a buyer, don't use weather as an excuse, right? Walk into a meeting. Well, I, as the sweater buyer, was the one person that could use it because if you had a warmer than average winter, then people
Emily Lane 12:06
aren't going to buy people aren't going to buy
Bret Schnitker 12:08
sweaters, and it would blow your whole season.
Emily Lane 12:10
Yeah,
Bret Schnitker 12:10
you know you would everything that you worked for the entire year. If the weather warmed up, you were toast because liquidation was super cheap at the end of the season, and you knew you had to sell all those sweaters up through Christmas. You wanted to be almost 90% sold through after the Christmas holiday, with returns and exchanges the week after. And if the weather was warmer, you were toast. The Attaware guy was similar. Yeah,
Emily Lane 12:34
right.
Bret Schnitker 12:35
I will tell you the prediction for this year is above average temperatures for a lot of the for the U.S. and that will continue through 2027. I think you'll get wetter conditions in the southeast, so there's going to be a lot more rain. And so, for anyone that is looking at warmer weather gear, sweaters, outerwear, things like that, with the forecast being what it is, and a very very strong El Nino in place, I think there's going to be challenges with cold weather gear. It's not to say that that if you get a you get higher than average melting in the ice caps in you know in the Arctic, which is happening, that doesn't push a polar vortex down, and doesn't mean that you know the central corridor or whatever might get a ton of snow, because that can over you know supersede an El Nino at points of time. But I would say, as a as a buyer for cold weather gear, I would be reducing the numbers in those categories, and I would be increasing them for a more milder and perhaps wetter, depending on your distribution, 2027.
Emily Lane 13:46
Yeah, I mean some of the holiday buys that that order's been long placed, so for this for this holiday. But you know, in planning for next year, it's I would be
Bret Schnitker 13:56
cautious.
Emily Lane 13:56
Yeah. What about other regions of the world? You know, are there places that are going to be safer and okay, or is this really a global phenomenon?
Bret Schnitker 14:05
I think because of the temperatures, and I would leave that to a a real weather expert, which you know it's one of the craziest jobs in the world. You can be 60 or 70% inaccurate and keep your job, but you know, weather is tough to predict, and so they're monitoring this all the time. The question marks that that are being talked about are: it's unprecedented. You know, how severe? How do we predict a tornado in France? Right.
Emily Lane 14:37
Right.
Bret Schnitker 14:37
So I think there's a lot of question marks out there. There's more information that's flowing in. I think staying apprised of the shifts in weather weather patterns, the depletion of water in countries that will be more prone to drought, the increase in water for those areas that are going to be more prone to flooding, and shifting your. Delivery expectations, understanding that that costs are going to be impacted. You know that's always been our business. If it's not one thing, it's another. If it's not freight costs, if it's not war, if it's not oil, if it's not weather, if it's not COVID. You know, yeah,
Emily Lane 15:15
there's always
Bret Schnitker 15:16
we always have something to navigate, and so the purpose of what we're doing here is just to say, hey, look, this is what we need to monitor. This is kind of the next event that we're seeing happening, combined with the war and the increase in petroleum and all of that stuff. Right. But we need to take a look. This is this is not going to be a minor El Nino. This is going to be a pretty massive one.
Emily Lane 15:40
So I think some key takeaways are, you know, making sure that you've got a diversified supply chain, right? So that you can be a little bit more nimble to reacting to some of these things you've mentioned: drought, flooding, so forth. Also, I think having a phenomenal logistics team is going to be important because, you know, making sure those goods take the right path home can make or break your delivery.
Bret Schnitker 16:12
I think certainly, and I think even logistics, when it comes to managing your future production, most purchases happen four to six months out, and so taking a look at these conditions, staying up to date for the major production nations, looking what those forecasts look like, and planning your production based upon the conditions is going to be super important.
Emily Lane 16:37
Great. Any other pieces of advice before we wrap this quick turn conversation, the
Bret Schnitker 16:42
last accurate weather report was when God told Noah there'd be 100% chance of rain. Since then, it's never been accurate.
Emily Lane 16:50
Okay, we're
Bret Schnitker 16:51
just gonna follow along. We're gonna stay up to date. We're gonna provide our audience and our clients with the best and most updated information, and hey, be prepared because it's it's here.
Emily Lane 17:04
Absolutely, and if we can be of help, don't hesitate to reach out. As we are now wrapping up this conversation, remember you can't control the weather, but you can prepare for it. Whether El Nino delivers subtle shifts or significant disruptions, awareness is always the first step towards resilience. Thanks for pulling up your chair with us today. We'll continue tracking these trends, challenges, and opportunities that are shaping our industry, and we'll bring them straight back to you. Don't forget to subscribe to stay apprised of upcoming conversations.
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