This is the tale of how a bale of French flax gets reincarnated as a designer sweater, ready for shoppers in Manhattan's stylish SoHo neighborhood. The process involves one boat, three factories, six trucks, two airplanes and a journey two-thirds of the way around the world.

This is also the story of a global supply chain at work. We will take you through the seemingly simple task of creating a linen sweater by Eileen Fisher, the New York fashion retailer that is a customer of Li & Fung, the Hong Kong trading and logistics behemoth.

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Eileen Fisher supplies the design, boxes of labels and the address of a warehouse in its home town of Irvington, N.Y. Li & Fung chooses and hires all the suppliers and sub-suppliers and arranges shipments from the raw materials stage to the warehouse.

"We stitch together supply chains," says Li & Fung Managing Director William Fung.

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