The Invisible Hands Behind a Rs. 100 Pair of Jeans at Delhi’s Sarojini Nagar Market

Every time someone buys a pair of jeans for Rs.100 at Sarojini Nagar Market, they're unwittingly participating in a complex global supply chain. Such cheap clothing doesn't miraculously materialise, it's the outcome of overproduction by global brands, rejection of "imperfect" garments, and a vast informal economy redistributing these rejects at rock-bottom prices.

India's textile and apparel industry, valued at over $100 billion and employing more than 45 million people, forms the backbone of this supply chain. The country exported approximately $16 billion worth of ready-made garments in fiscal year 2023-24, making it one of the world's largest textile exporters. But India's garment manufacturing sector faces significant challenges in the global market. Despite being home to approximately 27,000 domestic manufacturers and 48,000 fabricators, the country's garment exports have stagnated, remaining around $14.5-15 billion between 2013 and 2024, while competitors like Vietnam ($33.4 billion) and Bangladesh ($43.8 billion) have surged ahead. This competitive pressure intensifies the need for factories to offload surplus inventory quickly through informal channels.

From Factory Floors to Flea Markets

Much of what sells in Sarojini originates as factory rejects from export houses. Factories contracted by Zara, H&M, Primark, Mango and Adidas routinely overproduce, typically by 3-5 per cent, to cover possible rejects during quality inspection.

Even minor defects, such as misaligned stitches, shade variations, or misplaced buttons, are enough for global labels to reject entire batches. This practice mirrors a global pattern where the fashion industry produces between 80-100 billion garments annually, yet 92 million tonnes end up in landfills each year. Rather than discard them, exporters sell this "export surplus" in bulk at deep discounts. Vendors pick up these lots for as little as Rs. 100- 150 per item and mark them up modestly for resale.

Ram Mohan Gupta, a 43-year-old vendor running a stall now turned shop in Sarojini since 1992, explains the challenges, "We have to rush to get to these export hubs at Najafgarh or Bahadurgarh and be the fastest feet possible, or we lose the deal. I have now become old and have to thus rely on secondary sources, so my costs increase a bit. I buy from mediators, and every step in the process adds the cost by Rs. 20-30. Nowadays, I have seen many young guys and even rich people have entered our trade. Before, it used to be garbage for them, and now that they see making a profit from it, they also want a share of their own.”

That's how a "Zara-tagged" top reaches a Delhi flea market at irresistible prices. The garments are effectively new, just not deemed good enough for flagship stores. Industry insiders note that factories prefer bulk sales because "they do not even cover the cost of the material and labour" and want to "clear off their warehouses and make place for fresh export stocks."

The Women Behind the Scenes

Much of the distribution, the secondary step in the process, relies on informal labour, particularly women cloth recyclers known as "pherewaalis". India's garment sector engages an estimated five million homeworkers in production, with 58 per cent of surveyed factories outsourcing to these home-based workers—predominantly women. As Sushma Di, a pheriwali from Uttam Nagar Basti working in Sarojini Nagar recalls, "Ever since I was a child, I've been doing this. We'd go on pheris with our mothers, then help them mend the clothes afterwards. This is the only work we've ever known."

These women go door-to-door across Delhi's neighbourhoods, from Rajouri Garden to Paschim Vihar, collecting old clothes, often bartering them for utensils or household items. As recyclers, intermediaries and tailors, they mend, sort, clean and prepare clothes for resale, forming the invisible backbone of Delhi's resale ecosystem.

Rukmini Di, a garment worker from the export industry at Bahadurgarh, shares, "If I had confidence in my skill as a tailor, I would fight back." Research indicates five million homeworkers are engaged in production for garment and textile supply chains in India, with 58 per cent of surveyed factories outsourcing to homeworkers.

The Economics of Bargain Fashion

The astonishingly low prices result from a business model built on surplus sourcing, minimal overheads and razor-thin margins compensated by volume. As one trader noted, a top priced at Rs. 400 may have been bought for Rs. 30.

KK Mishra, who rents shared space in one of Sarojini's shops, explains the ecosystem's interdependence, "Different people come to shop at different prices. Some come with quantity in mind, some quality. Sarojini has it for all of them. A few months back, it was really bad, though. Because the sellers outside were removed and many were broken, people stopped coming to the market for a week or two. I usually make around Rs. 5,000-6,000 a day. But my earnings were down to less than half during that time. But it is Sarojini’s strength to get back up, and the crowd automatically gets filled; there is no stopping that.”

The market's scale is impressive. Sarojini Nagar attracts between 10,000 and 20,000 daily visitors on regular days, with weekend footfall surging to approximately 35,000 buyers. During festive seasons, these numbers can double, creating a retail phenomenon that has made it one of Asia's most popular street markets. The market area sees peak activity between 5:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. on weekends, with annual sales running into hundreds of crores of rupees.

The business model thrives on the global fashion industry's wasteful practices. Worldwide, clothing production doubled between 2000 and 2015, while the average number of times a garment is worn before disposal has decreased by 36 per cent over 15 years. This overproduction creates the steady stream of rejects that fuel markets like Sarojini. The fashion industry now produces enough waste that the equivalent of one garbage truck full of clothes ends up in landfills every second globally.

A Rs . 100 pair of jeans at a Delhi thrift market is a fragment of global overproduction, a rejected item from quality checks, a garment rescued by informal labourers—often women—and a tiny thread in a sprawling second-hand economy sustaining thousands. Next time you bargain-snag "designer-looking" jeans for a fraction of their original cost, spare a thought for the invisible hands that made that bargain possible.