I brought a few cool T-shirts from Threadless.com and their competitor DesignByHumans.com. I am a sucker for Unique/Cool looking T-shirts I love designs that are abstract/artistic. I was a bit disappointed with the DesignByHumans.com T-shirt not by the fact that the T-shirt was made in Pakistan (which was a big surprise for me), the T-shirt wasn’t that great and definitely not worth the 20+10$ I spent. The Threadless.com T-shirts were better but nothing I couldn’t buy here except that they were limited edition designs.
What put me off about the Threadless T-shirts were that the labels inside had been snipped off with scissors. Unlike DesignByHumans.com they didn’t want their customers/buyers to know that the T-shirt were most probably manufactured in India/Pakistan/Sri Lanka.
But hey its so UnCool to wear a T-Shirt made in INDIA isnt it?
I remember when my dad brought me a few things when he went on a trip to the US. He got me a pair of Rebook shoes made in China and a windbreaker jacket made in Sri-Lanka all from the USA.
American Apparel buys spun yarns in U.S. but imports organic yarn from Turkey, Pakistan.
Cotton Ginny uses certified organic cotton grown in India; the T-shirts are made in India.
Gap grows and spins its organic cotton in India. Fabric is cut and sewn in Sri Lanka.
Joe Fresh T-shirts are manufactured in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and the cotton is sourced in China.
New Organic spins its U.S.-grown organic Pima cotton in Switzerland.
You can read more about it here More here.
Most of the T-shirt made in India come from Tirupur. Its a T-Shirt Fanatic’s heaven, but you’ll need to know the right place to go, also it would be helpful if you knew someone there, its easy to get lost there and its hard to determine the quality of stuff unless you are a fabric expert. There are endless shops piled with T-shirts/Garments of every kind. During my college days I made a trip there after a few of my friends from Tirupur told me how Big Companies like Nike, Reebok were ripping off customers here in India. Apparently the T-Shirts were all manufactured in Tirupur and exported to US/Europe etc, where the labels were snipped off or removed, then exported back to India with a 1000% extra price tag.
Tirupur is the center of Tamil Nadu’s cotton knitwear industry and successfully markets its products in India and overseas. It is called the Knits Capital of India as it caters to famous brands and retailers from all over the world. Nearly every buyer of knitting in the world comes to Tirupur.
Some of the world’s largest retailers including Walmart, Switcher, Diesel, ARMY, Tommy Hilfiger, M&S, FILA, H&M, Pink Lemonade, HTHP, Whale, Reebok, VALUE, PitStop, RESPECT import many textiles items and clothing from Tirupur.
You can read more about Tirupur from the Wikipedia.
I am kind of reluctant to put my photos up.
Good to hear that at least in sometime Pakistan, India will be recognized as one of the coolest Textile Producer in the World, Proud to be a Pakistani.Pls don’t mind ^_~