Debunking "Made in India"

August 13, 2025

Growing up in India, I saw two very different worlds of clothing. On one side — my grandmother’s saris, painstakingly handwoven in Tamil Nadu, shimmering with gold zari. On the other, the fluorescent-lit export factories my uncle drove past, spitting out piles of cheap tees headed for far-off shelves.

Somewhere between these worlds, the label “Made in India” became a Rorschach test. Luxury collectors saw “cheap” while bargain hunters saw “fast fashion.” It’s time to dismantle that lazy shorthand and ask: what does Made in India actually mean in 2025?

Luxury’s Best-Kept Secret

The truth is, some of the most coveted “Made in Italy” or “Made in France” pieces in your wardrobe are actually stitched, embroidered, or beaded by Indian hands. India is the world’s largest exporter of hand embroidery, fuelling looks from Gucci’s tiger motifs to Dior’s couture runways.

For years, luxury brands hid this connection — fearing “Made in India” would dilute prestige. Garments would be shipped back to Europe just for a final button or label, so the “right” country name could be stitched inside. And yes that’s right, only 50% of production cost needs to be incurred in a country to be labelled “Made in [Country]”…

That’s finally shifting. Dior’s 2023 Mumbai show showcased 25 Indian embroidery techniques, openly crediting karigars. Designers like Rahul Mishra and Gaurav Gupta are blending centuries-old craft with high-fashion silhouettes, turning “Made in India” into a badge of cultural heritage.

The Sweatshop Myth (and the West’s Dirty Laundry)

Western narratives have long lumped “Made in Asia” with sweatshop labour. Yes, exploitation exists. But so does exploitation in Milan workshops making €2,000 handbags, where migrant workers sleep next to sewing machines. [Read our ‘Made in Italy’ edition for more.]

Post–Rana Plaza, reforms like Bangladesh’s legally binding safety Accord have driven tangible improvements, 92% of safety hazards remediated, millions trained in workplace safety. In India, textile giant Arvind has built water-recycling, low-emission mills supplying global denim brands. Fair-trade cooperatives like Okhai, and sustainability-focused labels like No Nasties, prove ethical production is alive and well.

The real problem isn’t geography — it’s opacity.

Why a Label Tells You Nothing

A “Made in X” tag captures just the last stop in a garment’s journey. In reality, your cotton tee might be:

  • Grown in Maharashtra

  • Spun into yarn in China

  • Woven in Bangladesh

  • Dyed in Indonesia

  • Stitched in Vietnam

That’s five countries before it even hits the shelf. This complexity lets brands hide behind subcontractors, and pretend they didn’t know about dodgy conditions further down the chain.

By 2027, Europe’s Digital Product Passport (DPP) law will force brands to trace raw materials back to Tier 5—the farm, forest, or mine—and publish it via a scannable code. [Read our DPP edition for more.]

Tech that catches what labels hide

While current labels may hide, new technology is uncovering the truth behind a garments life.

  • Document AI + supply maps. Platforms like TrusTrace ingest invoices, certificates and shipping docs, mapping tens of thousands of factories and millions of POs; when data looks dodgy (say, a risky subcontractor), it pings you before fabric hits the cutting table. That’s the Valentino blind spot — fixed.

  • Physical fingerprints. Chemistry and markers make fibres snitch on themselves. Oritain ties cotton to its farm via isotopes; Haelixa embeds DNA; FibreTrace bakes in luminescent pigments you can scan at each step—then lock to a digital ledger. Translation: zero room for “mystery cotton.”

  • ReCircle (IN) set up a digitised reverse-logistics pipeline that aims to process 570 metric tonnes of textile waste in 12 months, sorting clothes into rewear/repair/recycle streams. Done right, upcycling one garment can save ~53,000 litres of water and ~19 kg CO₂ versus making new.

  • BlockTexx (AU) runs the world’s first commercial poly-cotton recycling plant in Queensland, designed to process ~50,000 tonnes over four years and recover about 95% of material into cellulose and rPET. That’s blended-fabric purgatory… unlocked.

These tools don’t just make “Made in India” credible, they make it verifiable. Imagine scanning a QR code on your dress label to see the exact farm in Maharashtra and the weaving co-op in Tamil Nadu that made it possible…

Why It Matters Now

Global consumers are waking up to the fact that ethics aren’t determined by a country name. Regulators are about to make traceability the cost of entry, not a marketing extra. Gone are the days where brands can hide a cloth over our eyes.

This is India’s opportunity: to own its role as both a craft powerhouse and a high-tech manufacturing hub, provided brands tell the full story, and consumers are willing to listen (and pay) for it.

So next time you see “Made in India,” will you picture a sweatshop—or a centuries-old embroidery tradition verified by blockchain?

[VISUAL: risk–reward seesaw: “Stigma” vs “Heritage + Verified Sustainability”]

Geo-politics & Sustainability

The shift isn't just cultural, it's regulatory. Italian courts are already issuing "Transparency Certificates" to compliant brands while placing non-compliant luxury suppliers under judicial administration. With the EU's forced-labour ban (Regulation 2024/3015) hitting in 2027, brands can't afford opacity.

For ANZ brands sourcing from India, this transparency tech offers a competitive advantage. Map your supply chain now, or watch competitors win procurement deals with their data-rich credentials.

Pop-Feature

Sapro-Tech

What they do: Grow mycelium-based, plastic-free, biodegradable “leather” sheets from fungi—engineered for durability and finish, minus cows and PU.

Why it matters: Leather is a carbon-and-chemicals headache; most “vegan leather” is plastic. Sapro-Tech’s material slots into existing manufacturing with a dramatically cleaner footprint. They’ve secured NZ$1m pre-seed (2023) and lined up local partners—SABEN, Taylor Boutique, Velvet Heartbeat, and YY Nation—to road-test products. Early commercial revenues targeted for late 2024 with low-volume supply from Q3 2025.

Impact scorecard: 8/10. A credible, plastic-free alt to leather with near-term brand pilots; scale and price parity remain the watch-outs, but the unit economics improve fast when you plug into solar-run micro-farming.

If we want a fashion industry where “Made in India” (or anywhere) signals artistry, ethics, and innovation, tech has to make the invisible known. Labels won’t save us —data will.

Share this with someone who still thinks country of origin is the whole story.

As always finishing up with a provocative (well this one’s more rhetorical) question: If Milan's luxury ateliers can harbour sweatshops while Mumbai's tech-enabled factories achieve sustainability certifications, isn't it time we stopped judging quality by geography and started demanding transparency instead?

Take care of yourself and we’ll see you all in two weeks. Ciao

Grace & Rak