I see an obsession with local but would they actually be more environmentally friendly? Specialized higher yield locales are more efficenct for land usage. Efficencies of scale and more optimal environments and container ships of scale as well.

Aside from that more stringent local environmental regulations are the only advantage I can see mattering.

Transportation costs.

I assume local food is more well-studied than local fashion, and may have similar environmental cost profiles. This study: http://www.iufn.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Making-local-... found that transportation is actually less important than other factors.

On the other hand, local food has other important advantages: resiliency (perhaps less important for clothing), and supporting the local economy.