Apparel manufacturing

Canada has a world-scale knitter, and it is the reason not to start one. Gildan, headquartered in Montreal, reported 2025 net sales of $3,619M, up 11%, at a 31.2% gross margin and a 21.5% adjusted operating margin [A], from what it describes as vertically integrated, large-scale plants located primarily in Central America, the Caribbean, North America and Asia — and it closed the purchase of HanesBrands on 1 December 2025. Its sales to Canada alone were US$125.0M [A]. The entire Canadian apparel-knitting industry made C$108.7M in 2024, down from C$212.0M in 2015 [A]. So the country's own champion sells more into Canada than every Canadian knitting mill produces, from a plant network built mostly abroad. The pre-screen cut this on plant, but plant is not the binding problem: 25 of the 39 establishments have fewer than ten employees, and two-thirds sit in Quebec's old hosiery and sweater trade. The cut is willingness to pay. The buyer of a T-shirt, a sock or a fleece carries a reference price set by a company earning thirty-one points of gross margin at that price. A domestic mill survives only on buyers who will pay a multiple for provenance, a uniform contract or a fast small run — and an industry that has halved in nine years is the measure of how many there are. The software sold to apparel makers is screened separately.

The pre-screen marked this covered by a software record, which screens what is sold to apparel makers, not the making. The enterable proposition is a contract sewing shop — and it is reachable: 428 of the 817 Canadian establishments have one to four employees, and the entry is machines, a lease and sewers. The best case for it is Canada Goose, which made C$1,528.2M of revenue at a 69.7% gross margin in fiscal 2026 [A] selling down-filled outerwear it says is made exclusively in Canada. But read how. Over 80% of those products were manufactured directly in its own facilities — five in Canada — and contract partners are described as what lets it flex production capacity higher or lower, with contract-made goods returned to its own plants for inspection and the logo [A]. That is the contractor's position in one paragraph: the brand keeps the margin, keeps the core volume in-house, and buys outside capacity as a shock absorber. The national series agrees. Cut-and-sew contracting earned $278.0M in 2024, down from $329.9M in 2021, with 33% of revenue paid out in wages against 26% for the manufacturers who own their product [A]. The cut is defensibility: a contract shop sells labour hours to a customer who can insource them, offshore them or move them down the street, and holds nothing that compounds.

A residual code — hats, gloves, belts, ties, scarves and whatever clothing fits nowhere else. The reachable niche is the small accessory maker: a few machines, a blocking bench or a glove pattern, and 194 of the 323 Canadian establishments have one to four employees. The Small-Batch Leather Goods record next door cut a similar bench on distribution — the maker cannot buy attention. This group adds a different and blunter piece of evidence, because here the statistical agency publishes both sides of the ledger. Canadian accessory manufacturers booked $521.3M of revenue in 2024 against $563.1M of expenses [A]. That is not a bad year in a good run: expenses exceeded revenue in five of the eleven years since 2013 for which both sides are published — 2013, 2015, 2017, 2019 and 2024 — and the best year cleared 6% [A]. Revenue has grown, from $349.4M in 2015, and it has not helped. About a fifth of 2024 revenue was not goods the establishments made [A, low-quality estimate], which suggests makers topping up with resale. The cut is willingness to pay: across a decade and the whole group, customers have not paid these makers enough to cover what it costs to be them, and a new bench does not arrive with a better price. Industrial and safety gloves, which sell through distributors on different terms, were not examined separately.