When thinking about designing good quality and unique clothing, understanding who you’ll be partnering with to make your clothes is a key part of bringing an ethical brand to life.
However, if you’re a first-time designer (or even an experienced fashion designer looking to switch to a different supplier) knowing where to find the right people can be tricky. That’s where Banana can help — one of the upsides of launching a product with us is that we can connect you with our recommended producer partners.
Meet a few of our clothing producer partners.
Leverstyle
Based in Hong Kong, Leverstyle has been an industry leader for close to 70 years.
Founded in 1956 as a shirt-making business, it’s since expanded to produce products for e-commerce brands like Boden and Stitch Fix as well as designer labels such as Paul Smith, Hugo Boss, Rag and Bone and Theory.
Proud to be an ethically driven clothing producers, in 2006 Leverstyle became one of the first manufacturers in China to be certified for SA8000 — one of the world’s strictest responsibility standards.
Now a registered B-Corp, Leverstyle says it’s focused on pioneering an industry-wide pivot towards a sustainable future.
Leverstyle specialises in: athleisurewear, technical sportswear and performance outerwear.
Find out more about Leverstyle
Knitup
Supported by Cobalt Fashion, the world’s largest supplier of knitwear, Knitup is the go-to manufacturer for fast, ethical knitwear.
All materials used have been selected for their sustainability credentials. Knitup’s partners include those supplying the world’s largest sustainable cotton to businesses running advanced cashmere mills.
Passionate about minimising overproduction, Knitup takes a tech-driven approach to design. By going fully digital, it’s playing its part in minimising production costs so that designers don’t have to worry about minimum order quantities (MOQs) and so Knitup aren’t overproducing clothing that doesn’t sell.
The team at Knitup say they spend their days looking for solutions to the problems of traditional manufacturing — lack of diversity in design, unethical supply chains and mass production of stock.
Knitup specialises in: helping develop knitwear collection
Find out more about Knitup
Houzhou Worldbest
Specialists in silk and soft woven womenswear, Honzhou Worldbest is situated in the gorgeous lakeside city of Huzhou, China — an area renowned for its silk and knitwear.
They are also a favourite manufacturer of Banana’s co-founder Luke, who has worked extensively with them across a number of fashion ventures over the years.
Houzhou Worldbest specialise in: silk and knitwear
Fashion Enter
For designers based in the UK and Europe, we partner with Fashion Enter, which has ethical factories in both London and Wales.
A not-for-profit, social enterprise, Fashion Enter provides sampling, fabric sourcing, grading and production.
Established in 2010, Fashion Enter’s London Factory produces an average of 15,000 garments a week for a number of multinational fashion companies. It’s the only UK company with ‘leading status’ in the ethical and technical Fast Forward audit.
This sustainable factory focuses on quality fashion production and can move from concept to delivery within a two- to three-week timeframe — all by using fabric kept in stock and on-site.
Fashion Enter has high digital printing capabilities and provides full transparency on how they calculate their sampling and production costs.
Fashion Enter specialises in: womenswear and soft separates in jersey
Find out more about Fashion Enter
Learn more about becoming a creator with Banana or contact us to partner with us as one of our clothing producers.
