The clothes many people wear are well-traveled even before they try them on for the first time.
Brand stores in Kyiv, like Zara and Marks &
Spencer, sell their wares partly made by Ukrainian clothing makers. But before
the final stop at the retail outlets, materials are often imported only to be
exported and re-imported again for sale.
Local garment producers cater to world-renowned
orders from world-renowned brands who take advantage of the cheaper labor and
Ukraine’s proximity to European markets, even if some of the finished product
ends up back in Ukrainian stories.
The Trottola sewing factory in Lviv is one of
them. Their production lines are devoted to Spain-based Zara, the U.K.’s New
Look, and French brands. Less than 2 percent of their output is sold in
Ukraine. Trottola factory director Yaroslav Rushchyshyn said that all their
manufacturing lines were intended for export when the plant opened in 1994.
Men’s suits hang on a hangers in Trembita sewing factory in Chernivtsi.
Trottola takes delivery of raw materials from Britain and Spain to Ukraine, but the
country of origin could be elsewhere. Ukrainian seamstresses produce the clothes,
pack them and send them back to the ordering country for distribution. Local
producers are prohibited from selling the finished items in Ukraine for tax
reasons.
That’s why none of the garments get sent directly, for example, to a Ukrainian
store from Trottola’s production line. “Our Zara (made in Ukraine) comes back
to the store in Ukraine after two years,” Rushchyshyn
said about market differences. “They wear such clothes that people here wouldn’t
put on.”
According to Rushchyshyn, the cost of making a blouse
in Ukraine is from 3.50 to 5 pounds per item. “But we hang a price tag of 19.99
pounds,” he said.
Whereas some factories have shuttered because
of the economic crisis, Trottola continues to receive more orders,
but doesn’t have the capacity to take them. “On the contrary, if the hryvnia
decreases – we thrive,” he says.
According to the Association of Light Industry,
half of all 1,900 sewing factories in Ukraine export their goods. Cheap Chinese
and Turkish clothes, underground manufacturing, and contraband make domestic
manufacturing unprofitable for them.
Another sewing factory, Santa-Ukraina in
Pervomaisk in Odesa Oblast, which has existed since 1944, also refocused toward
Western customers. It produces 20,000-25,000 items monthly and only 5 percent
stays in Ukraine, while the rest goes to Germany, the U.K., Netherlands,
France, and the U.S. Mostly, it manufactures for Mexx, Marks & Spencer,
Mamas & Papas, Marc Jacobs, Gerard Darel and others.
To sew a dress for Mexx, its workers deliver
fabric to Ukraine and then take away each piece of the clothes, avoiding the
import tariff at the customs agency. “We just give labor power,” Santa-Ukraina
Director Yevhen Dyrdin said. He added that their quality of sewing can compete
with any country in the world thanks to adherence to high, professional
standards and equipment.
One Mexx’s dress can cost €70-400. A similar
model made for the Ukrainian customer sells for Hr 400 (€16) in a Santa-Ukraina
store. “Our goods concede nothing to Marks & Spencer, which has stores in
Kyiv, but they are cheaper by three-four times,” he said.
Even the 5 percent of clothes that is sold
domestically is produced from imported fabric. Dyrdin said that after the
Soviet Union collapsed, fabric manufactures were left in Russia and the Baltic
states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. “Ukrainian raw material doesn’t exist,
so forget about it,” he said. “So we cannot compete with the gray contraband on
the market.”
Another factory, Trembita in Chernivtsi,
exclusively sews men’s suits and coats under the factory label, delivers only
some 5 percent of goods to its brand stores in Kyiv and Dnipropetrovsk. The
rest are made for German, Italian, Dutch and French clients.
Such brands as Armani, Prado, and Barutti were
among its former clients, but because of the small volume of
orders they had to stop cooperation. Nowadays, Trembita sews 20,000 suits
monthly for French brands, such as Celio, and around 8,000 items for S.Oliver
and others. Trembita uses modern equipment, while the quality of goods is
controlled by an international audit office from Switzerland.
Still, Trembita’s director Stella Stankevych
struggles to convince local buyers that Ukrainian manufacturers are not worse
in quality than foreign labels, yet much cheaper. According to her, the most expensive
suit from Trembita costs Hr 3,700 for the Ukrainian consumer. “All these
Barutti-Shmarutti are sewed by our hands, so stop looking for something better,”
Stankevych said.
To gain the loyalty of Ukrainian customers, Trembita designs other models. “In
Europe, they (men) are short and slim, when our men are massive and handsome,”
Stankevych said.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliana Romanyshyn can be
reached at [email protected].
