A supply-chain expert reveals how luxury brands pull off a sleight of hand: 75-90% of a garment gets made in Indian factories, then final touches happen in Europe so they can slap "Made in Italy" on the label. The prestige is marketing, not manufacturing.
I think earlier what it was that Made in Italy, Made in France was looked up upon. It kind of showed that Italian manufacturing is superior to manufacturing anywhere else in the world. Even though a lot of brands were sort of manufacturing in India, in China, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, the last mile production sort of assembly always happened in Italy or France to kind of give it that perceived value of it being expensive because it's made in Europe. When I was working with certain luxury brands in their supply chain management, we kind of realized that 75 to 80% of the production was happening in India. And we could see that as well because we visited a lot of factories. We were connecting factories with certain luxury brands. And the last mile production, so they kind of go as semi-finished products. You'll have the collar not stitched on, or not the cuff stitched on, or the button placket. And the last mile production would happen in, say, like in Italy or France, and then the label for Made in Italy or Made in France would go. So that was kind of like an eye-opener where 90% of it was happening in India.
