First, let us have a look at the world premium brands, such as Chanel, Hermes, Armani, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Dior, Hugo Boss etc., most of which set their production factories in European countries, such as Italy, France, Portugal etc. On the one hand, China’s domestic manufacturing costs increase dramatically, and on the other hand, the manufacturing products in Europe and America are world-renowned for their excellent qualities. Under the great reputation, they have a long precipitation in industrial development, and constant faith in quality, which is difficult for our domestic enterprises to exceed in a short term; however most medium to high-end sweaters in the world are still produced in China nowadays. With the increasing domestic labor costs and other production costs, as well as the growth of Southeast Asian workers’ knitting technology and experience, the production of medium to high-end sweaters will gradually shift to Southeast Asian countries.
From the perspective of production, the medium to high-end sweaters have the following features:
- The yarns are mainly cashmere, wool, mohair, alpaca, silk, linen, cotton, viscose, rayon etc, and their blends; and multi-variety fancy yarns are also used more and more.
- The luxury yarns are mainly from Italy and a few from Japan, some are from local top quality yarn mills / brands.
- The order quantity tends to be not big, and has the tendency of small quantities and multi-styles.
- To satisfy the high quality requirements, most medium to high-end sweaters are produced by machine of Stoll or Shima. Every production process has strict quality demands.
- Regarding to the gauge, it also has 1.5gg heavy gauge, and the finest 16gg and 18gg which needs extremely high ability in craftsmanship and quality control.
- The added craftsmanship are important, mainly in application of intarsia, embroidered craftsmanship, print, hand knitted etc.
- The orders from Japanese market usually require a third-party 100% quality inspection.
