In apparel, value is destroyed when economic decisions become irreversible without being treated as such. That’s the pattern behind “unexpected” margin erosion: not ignorance—misclassification.
Irreversibility is not a legal concept. It’s an economic one: the point after which the cost, timing, or complexity cannot be changed without paying a penalty that matters.
Where irreversibility hides
It hides in minimums, capacity reservations, freight choices, fabric commitments, and calendar pressure. It also hides in complexity itself: once you approve complexity, you approve volatility.
When leadership discovers these constraints late, the conversation becomes narrative. The economic choices are already fixed, so the organization explains rather than governs.
The gate is a leadership tool
An irreversibility gate is not a stage gate for process compliance. It is a governance moment: confirm what is economically fixed, confirm alignment with intent, and decide whether to proceed under the constraints you just made explicit.
Done well, it changes incentives. People stop hiding assumptions to “get through” the workflow, because the workflow is no longer the objective.
Valuation logic
In M&A, irreversibility is a quality-of-earnings issue in disguise. Volatility is not just a miss; it is evidence of a system that cannot keep outcomes inside the boundaries it claims.
If you can point to a gate and show how exceptions are handled, you have a control story. Without it, you have a personality story.
A simple standard: before commitments, confirm what is economically fixed. If you can’t do that, you can’t credibly govern EBITDA.