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Suit is an engineered garment, which requires around 150 operations and is a very difficult product category to handle; not to mention fabrics, linings and accessories which play an equally critical role in it.

Expectedly so, suit making is not for all. Nevertheless, contrary to the view that the global suit market is shrinking, it is rather the opposite!

The global suit market is projected to value more than US $ 80 billion as of 2022 (of which 25 per cent is contributed by USA alone), and is expected to grow between 5-7 per cent CAGR by 2027.

The increased ratio of women to men in addition to the growing number of working women in the meanwhile has added a new dimension to the market (according to the World Bank Data survey, females include nearly about 39 per cent of the workforce around the world and the number has seen rapid increase since the past two decades).

The global women’s suits market is segmented into single-breasted and double-breasted in terms of product type while in terms of application, it is segregated into official, casual and others. Similarly, the global men’s suit market, according to the product type, is sub-segmented into formal and informal, while in terms of application, the market is classified into commercial, personal and others.

With respect to geographical landscape, both the global men’s and women’s suit market are divided into United States, European Union, China and rest of the world (including Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia) even if from the export point of view, China currently accounts for lion’s share of the market (around 70 per cent by some version), followed closely on the heels by countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Taiwan, Turkey, India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

European countries like Italy, France, Portugal and Romania are also manufacturing suits on an industrial scale.

Gone are those days, when Bangladesh was synonymous with knits and denim only. Given the prospects suit as a product category offers, many have now taken to making suits despite the challenges as it offers an effective way to ward off the price point blues (in the regular products), which has been a long-standing pain point for the Bangladesh apparel makers.

Today, Bangladesh has emerged as a supplier of suits for many reputed global retailers and brands and caters not only to the traditional strongholds of Europe and USA but also to many non-traditional markets, all with a view to grab a bigger share of the flourishing global suit market.

“Looking deeply into suit manufacturing in Bangladesh, one will see many of these have been established through JVs and this comes with transfer of technology and expertise,” says Managing Director of Cloths “R” Us Limited, Kyaw Sein Thay (Dolly), speaking to Apparel Resources (AR).

A classical example of the same perhaps would be Ananta’s Universal Menswear Ltd., which was established in 2011 as a joint venture with Time International Trading, a leading Romanian tailoring manufacturer.

“It helped us a lot in terms of technology support. Thanks to the training received (technical and other aspects of suit making), we are now doing very well in suits,” claims Shalauddin Ahamed Tushar, Senior Merchandiser of Universal Menswear Limited speaking to AR.

Universal Menswear Ltd., produces men’s tailored suits, jackets, coats and trousers and caters to a wide-range of global buyers in formal suits and blazers including the likes of Sweden’s Hennes & Mauritz (H&M) and UK’s Marks & Spencer (M&S).

As per the company’s website, in formal men’s suit category, it can produce formal jackets to the tune of 260,000 pieces/month while the production capacity in terms of formal trousers stands at 300,000 pieces per month.

To start with, setting up a suit factory is not an easy proposition, feels Md. Shafiqul Islam, GM Merchandising & Marketing, Energypac Fashions Limited explaining why there aren’t that many new players in suits as yet compared to the regular product categories.

“It took us almost 7-8 years to reach where we are currently,” Shafiqul says highlighting the inherent challenges of setting up a suit unit. However, the support Energypac received from its buyers in each and every aspect, including training of the workforce, has helped its cause immensely.

Humayun Rashid, the Chairman of Energypac Fashions Ltd., set up his factory in Gazipur in 2007 with a goal to produce value-added garments and today boasts of a wide range of reputed brands and retailers (including names like M&S and s. Oliver) as its clients, even the high-range value-added suits produced at Rashid’s factory reportedly command price of US $ 300 and above.

Like Energypac, there are a few other homebred names like the East West Industrial Park which have been doing very well in suits.

This is one such name which is dominating the product category for long and is one amongst the first-generation garment makers that had the courage to take up suit making, feels Dolly.

It is a different story though that after the demise of Harun-Ar-Rashid in 2020, who established his garments unit East West Fashion Garments Ltd., in the Mirpur area of Dhaka and started producing formal suits and trousers in the early 1990s after returning from USA in 1980 (after completing a second master’s in marketing and dabbling in jute/jute product export business for a brief while before switching over to garment manufacturing and export), East West Industrial Park suffered a jolt at his passing away.

However, East West has underwent a lot of restructuring ever since, as is shared with AR by his nephew Mahbub Rashid, Director of Business Development, who has been a part of the restructuring exercise and is working towards making East West, what it was in its heydays, again.

“When he began making business suits, no one imagined those would be sold, let alone exported. He explored the international market on his own, while more than ten manufacturers now export suits,” observes Anwar-Ul-Alam Chowdhury, former president of Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) on Harun-Ar-Rashid.

It was a difficult time indeed for East West after the passing away of Harun, agrees Mahbub, elucidating the diverse challenges the company endured in-between.

But, today, East West is back into the game and rather strongly, so to speak.

Meanwhile, for players like Chittagong-based Thianis Apparels Ltd., getting into suit production has been a natural course of progression.

“We have always been into niche products. My father started off in 2005 with making formal trousers and woven bottoms. It was in 2019 that we ventured into making formal suits and since then we are into it,” explains Azeezur Rahman Khan, Director of Thianis Apparels Ltd., to AR.

Thianis was established by Anisur Rahman Khan and currently has a production capacity of 18,000-20,000 jackets and 160,000 trousers per month.

A comparatively new entrant in suit manufacturing, Azeezur is of the opinion it’s the passion that determines if one would excel in suit making at the end of the day as technicalities can be learned but passion is innate.

Once a roaring product category in the global market, suits took a hit in the backdrop of the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, which rendered people to work from home for a prolonged period to fend off the spread of the disease!

People bought more casualwear than perhaps required because they were working from home, says the Chief Operating Officer of NSL Textiles Limited (Garment & Textiles) Rupak Chakraborty, as he shares his views with AOB.

However, with the pandemic taking a back seat, Azeezur is of the opinion, the market is climbing back towards normalcy again.

“People have started going out and they want to wear something that makes them feel good and confident; and what better than suits?” poses a teasing Azeezur even if as per Dolly, it’s not the classical English suit rather options like blazers that are growing more strongly in the post-pandemic period, which finds a strong resonance with Rupak too, as per whom blazer is definitely the in-thing in the current context, thanks to its versatility.

One can even pair it with a chino or denim jeans with élan, Rupak says.

Covid apart, Bangladesh also had to deal with some inherent bottlenecks like the availability of fabrics as well as accessories for suits and blazers, for which the country still has to depend to a great extent on overseas destinations, including China.

“We are also getting some amount of fabric from India,” says Tushar, adding the number of Bangladeshi mills that can produce decent fabrics (for suits) is increasing by the day albeit local availability of accessories have also grown manifold over in the recent years, on the positive side.

Meanwhile, for names like Energypac and Thianis, India is also emerging as a prospective market for suits where they are able to cater to many prominent names.

Japan and South Korea are two other strongly emerging names among non-traditional export destinations for many notwithstanding the fact Europe and USA still continue to hold the sway, especially the latter, suit import by which grew massively of late.

As per the OTEXA data analysed by Team AR, US has imported US $ 890.86 million worth of suits from January to September ’22, noting a whopping 105.93 per cent yearly growth even as all major suit manufacturing destinations have grown substantially; China being on top, while Bangladesh, Vietnam, Indonesia and India clocked significant growth too.

Of total suit imports, USA sourced US $ 212.29 million worth of suits from China, which grew by 158.13 per cent in its shipment on Y-o-Y basis. This is around 24 per cent of total value!

Vietnam and Indonesia performed well as they shipped US $ 119.55 million and US $ 53.13 million worth of suits to the US market in the period under review, growing by around 148 per cent and 216 per cent respectively on Y-o-Y basis.

Bangladesh too managed to grab a decent share as it noted 142.53 per cent Y-o-Y growth to export US $ 26.29 million worth of suits in the mentioned period.

However, despite the strong performance of China, many are of the opinion, in the coming days, players like Bangladesh will gain more in relevance when it comes to suits.

And they have their reasons why.

As China gradually wraps up its business in the face of rising labour cost, the door of opportunity is opening up and there is mounting pressure on competing countries such as Bangladesh, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Even though, in the geographical context, Cambodia and Vietnam are showing a lot of promise in suit making, Bangladesh is not lagging behind either.

“China will cede some market to low-wage countries with a higher skill set, and Bangladesh and Vietnam will be the two key contenders,” said an industry insider with deep understanding of suit manufacturing and export business, who went on to add many global brands sourced from China earlier but Covid- 19 has shown them the perils of depending on a single source.

This has led many to pursue a China-plus strategy to diversify alternative sources.

Who better than Bangladesh as a competitive sourcing destination?

But for Bangladesh to push home its advantage in suit manufacturing and exports, it has now to focus on the key aspects of backward linkages, manpower development, and last but not the least, capacity building and marketing, opine experts to wind up on a positive note.

Hope, the Bangladesh suit makers are listening!

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