Old roots
Trade runs deep here. Kodumanal, about 26 kilometres east of Tiruppur, traded with Rome some two thousand years ago. Cotton grew in the surrounding plains long before anyone knitted it.
A century of knitting
The first knitwear unit in Tiruppur opened in 1925. By the 1940s the town had become South India’s leading knitwear centre, making vests and innerwear for the home market.
The world arrives
International buyers followed. The Italian retailer Verona began sourcing directly in 1978, and C&A became a customer in 1981. In 1990 exporters formed the Tiruppur Exporters’ Association to speak for the cluster. When the global quota system for textiles ended in 2005, Tiruppur was ready to compete on open terms.
Exports grew more than a hundredfold in thirty-five years.
Tiruppur today
Exports reached about ₹46,000 crore in financial year 2026, shipped to more than 50 countries. Around 1,300 garment units employ roughly a million people, about three in four of them women. Most units are small and specialised: only about a fifth are vertically integrated.
What this means for buyers
Specialisation is Tiruppur’s strength. Knitters, dyers, printers, embroiderers and garment makers sit within a short drive of one another, so a programme can move from yarn to carton quickly. It also means a brand must know which units to trust for which step. That is the work a good buying house does, and why so much of the world’s knitwear is bought through one.