Michelle Feinberg is betting on immigrant workers from Brooklyn’s Chinatown and homeless shelters — not Donald Trump’s tariff war — to kick-start her newly launched personal protective equipment factory in New York.
The 53-year-old founder of New York Embroidery Studio, a fashion contract manufacturer, has built a 300-person workforce — including dozens of Latino immigrants living in shelters and more than 200 first-generation Chinese women — to produce everything from isolation gowns to Navy working uniforms for the federal government.
Feinberg welcomes Trump’s tariff hikes, which have “immediately” led to “two to three calls a day” from private clients even as NYES continues to rely overwhelmingly on government contracts that will run out by 2027.