ALLWEAR: Dressed For the Long Run

87 years ago, a Johannesburg factory opened its doors under the name Die Volks Hemde en Klerefabriek Beperk, built to give women arriving from rural areas somewhere to work. That business became Veka, then Allwear, and its production line eventually relocated to Newcastle in KwaZulu-Natal, where it still operates today from an 80,000m² site with 26,000m² under roof. Just over 1,000 people now work there, producing school uniforms, workwear, activewear, athleisure and corporate clothing under brands including Allwear, Allwear Active, Prefect, Giovanni Nero, Black Rose, and now developing a new brand called Outdoor by Allwear branded with an Oryx.

Managing Director Joe Tau has been with the business for two years, joining as Chief of Operations before being appointed to the top job in April 2025. He inherited a company already synonymous with school wear across the country, and he has built on the obvious strengths that have been in place for some time. “Our core business is, and always has been, clothing manufacturing. We are well known for quality and value, and these are the two main separating factors for us against the competition,” he says.

The company’s reach now stretches well beyond Newcastle. Allwear’s marketing network covers South Africa, Lesotho, Namibia, Botswana, eSwatini and Mozambique, serving more than 1,300 customers, all supplied from a single site rather than a network of subcontractors. Behind that operation sits a modern ERP system built specifically for textile manufacturing, the kind of infrastructure most Cut Make Trim (CMT) operators in the region have never had reason, or resource, to invest in.

“We are the first clothing manufacturer to introduce IoT (internet of things) connecting every sewing machine with a tablet and collecting operational data real time. The PMS (production management system) has further given us an advantage to digitize processing information, data packs, quality standards (to achieve quality at source initiative), training videos for operations, interactive human resources, machine downtime analysis, engineering spares stock management and real-time people productivity measurements,” explains Tau.

STEADY GROWTH

Little of that pedigree is visible in the group’s public profile, and Tau prefers it that way. “We have been stable and have been growing modestly, and that is welcome. With the global geopolitical and economic pressures around the world, everybody is going through the same challenges, and it is not easy. However, I am sure that we are well prepared to navigate the situation.,” he says.

The rebrand from Veka to Allwear has accompanied that steady expansion over the years. When Allwear was acquired by African Blue Sky Investment (Pty) Ltd in 2024, another positive transformation milestone was achieved within two years gaining a Level 1 B-BBEE status – this positions Allwear well in line with government requirements to do business directly with its departments, this is a credential few competitors in the region can match, what is more is that Allwear is a proud and fully compliant South African company.

Modesty in growth has not meant modesty in ambition. Tau’s own rise through the business, from Chief of Operations to Managing Director in under two years, reflects the same appetite for taking on more than the role in front of him, and he describes a business actively reworking how it manufactures rather than simply how much. “We are hoping to expand into the export market, outside of Africa. We already export to a few sub-Saharan African countries, and we are looking at the UK and other markets for opportunities.

“Our industry in general has had tough trading circumstances since 1994, when South Africa opened itself to global environment, the pressure for competitiveness has not lessened, with huge impact coming from cheap imports.”

Tau argues that with the willingness from government to push for localising supply more than cheap imports, Allwear is up for the challenge to aggressively improve its internal efficiencies to remain attractive and enable what retailers, government and other stakeholders in the industry dream for. “We want to make the clothing industry great again in South Africa,” he states.

A DIFFERENT STANDARD

The distinction that tech supports rather than replaces matters more than usual in the context of Newcastle’s clothing sector, which has spent much of the past year under a harsher spotlight. Government inspections uncovered illegal labour practices and unsafe conditions at several factories in the area, with reports of workers paid as little as R12 to R17 an hour against a legislated minimum no compliant factory can match. Legal filings brought by the National Bargaining Council for the Clothing Manufacturing Industry followed, and one lawyer connected to the case has put the proportion of non-compliant Newcastle operators as high as 92%. More recently, a wave of departures by migrant workers following anti-immigrant protests has left some producers short of close to a fifth of their workforce, with several factory owners telling reporters they are now considering whether to close altogether.

Allwear’s position is deliberately, and structurally, different. Tau is emphatic that the business does not import finished garments to sell under a local label, a practice that has damaged trust in ‘Proudly South African’ branding elsewhere in the sector. “We import around 40% of our fabric from very reliable suppliers abroad. We source around 60% locally, where the service offering is excellent and the commitment to quality supply is very good. We do not buy from abroad and then compete with a claim that products are locally made. We are a horizontally integrated manufacturing business,” he explains. Every garment that leaves the Newcastle site, in other words, was made there.

STEP APART

Tau’s bold view of the industry’s future is shaped by that same insistence on substance over shortcuts. He points to a shift already under way among retailers, who have grown local procurement from around 33% to close to 50% since the Retail-Clothing-Textile-Footwear-Leather Masterplan was signed in 2019, representing hundreds of millions of garments now made domestically rather than offshore. “That growth happened because retailers made a choice, and it’s worth acknowledging,” he says, setting out where he believes the opportunity now lies. “The manufacturers who can offer quality, reliability, competitive lead times and full compliance are ready to be genuine long-term partners to the retail sector.”

It is a future Allwear is positioning itself to lead rather than simply survive. 87 years after its first factory opened to give displaced women work, the company remains anchored in the same province, still fully South African owned, still manufacturing every stitch on-site, and still investing in the technology and training needed to keep pace with a market that has grown far less forgiving of shortcuts. Where some Newcastle operators are weighing whether their businesses can survive the current scrutiny, Allwear’s Level 1 B-BBEE status, government-ready compliance record and near-nine-decade trading history put it in a position most of its neighbours can only aspire to.

“We are a proudly South African company that is compliant, and our manufacturing process is gradually moving to become world-class,” Tau says. “From head to toe, we clothe the nation, so that everyone rocks up ready and confident for school, work, office and whatever sport they play.”

For an industry currently defined in the headlines by factory raids and worker exodus, a combination of longevity, compliance and quiet reinvestment is the counterweight it needs. Allwear’s story suggests South African manufacturing does not have to choose between competitiveness and doing things properly, and that the businesses willing to prove it, quarter after quarter and decade after decade, are the ones best placed to shape what comes next.