Our manufacturing
The journey of Y.O.U Underwear
At Y.O.U Underwear, we work with two of India’s leading sustainable and ethical manufacturers. We work with Connoisseur Fashions in Chennai and Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu and Rajlakshmi Cotton Mills in Kolkata. Both our manufacturers operate under SA8000 certified social standards.
Connoisseur Fashions is passionate about their responsibility to help make their local community a better place to live and work. We chose to partner with them because of their strong ethical credentials, their values, and their focus on empowering women in particular.
Knitting
Printing & Dyeing
Cutting & Sewing
Finishing Touches
Knitting
The process of creating every pair of Y.O.U Underwear starts with the knitting of the cotton. This is done in Tiruppur, which is known as the knitting capital of India and is the city where our main factory is located. The cotton threads are knitted with this massive knitting machine and combined with 5% elastane to give our underwear that comfortable stretch! The knitted rolls of fabric are then sent off to another nearby factory to be dyed and printed.
Printing and Dyeing
All our underwear is dyed in another factory in Tiruppur using vast buckets of low-impact dyes. Our patterned materials are more complex and exciting. It is done with this rotary printing machine where it is rolled through various colours and prints in order to create our colourful designs!
Our manufacturers use low-impact, fibre-reactive dyes that are safe and GOTS certified. They contain no heavy metals or other known toxic substances and meet all of the EU criteria for eco-friendly garments.
We also have a closed loop dyeing process where any dye residue is fed back into the cement industry. Not only does this help us manage our waste responsibly, it also helps to reduce virgin resource use across industries.
Cutting and Sewing
The next step is the cutting of the dyed and printed fabric. Layers of fabric are laid upon each other, 50 layers thick! Nesting technology is used to make sure we get the most out of our fabrics, positioning each pattern piece is cut in the most space efficient way. This technology enables us to reduce fabric waste and any offcuts we do have are made into our organic cotton Y.O.U scrunchies.
The garment workers then use a huge cutting machine to cut out our pattern pieces which are then hand-sewn together by the factory's skilled garment workers.
Finishing Touches
The finishing touches of our underwear is our heat printed labels which are hand done with a heated press before everything is ironed and quality checked. We don't have external labels in our underwear to reduce our material use but also to ensure maximum comfort and avoid those itchy labels which we all hate.
It is then all packed up and sent to us, ready to sell to our lovely customers. Every order we receive is carefully hand checked and packed by a member of the Y.O.U Underwear team. We also include a hand written note within each order to remind our customers of how much we appreciate their support.
No exploitation in our supply chain
We work with India's leading sustainable and ethical manufacturers. We know that the growers, spinners and makers who produce our underwear are paid and treated fairly. In October 2024, Sarah Jordan, CEO & Founder of Y.O.U underwear travelled to Chennai and Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu, Southern India to visit Connoisseur Fashions and to see first hand how our organic cotton underwear is made. Read her travel blog here.
SA8000 Standards
SA8000 certified social standard ensures there is:
- no child labour
- working hour compliance
- minimum wage compliance
- overtime compensation and incentives
- rights of Freedom of Association
- no discrimination for race, age, sex, political opinion or religion.
Additional benefits at Rajlakshmi Cotton Mills include transport to and from the job site, company sponsored meals, a health plan and funding for workers' children's education.
Organic Cotton
Our manufacturers use only GOTS certified organic and Fairtrade cotton which is better for the environment by using 91% less water and 62% less energy than traditional cotton. It also avoids the use of harmful chemical pesticides, making it safer for our upstream workers and their surrounding environments.
Fairtrade cotton means workers are paid the Fairtrade premium. Our manufacturers use cotton from Chetna Organic - a hugely successful Fairtrade producer which supports more than 15,279 cotton-farming families arranged into 13 cooperatives across 400 villages.
Discover soft, stylish, organic cotton underwear
