Made locally in Marseille: a more complex challenge than it seems

At Espigas and Canal16lab, we made the brave (and sometimes slightly crazy) decision to manufacture our products in Marseille.
But let’s be honest: making things in France — and especially in Marseille — has become an uphill battle.

Why?
Because after decades of offshoring, our country has lost the vast majority of its textile and footwear manufacturing workshops.
Starting in the 1980s, production shifted to countries where wages were significantly lower — Portugal, Tunisia, China, Vietnam... The result? Entire areas of expertise have vanished.

Today, everything has to be rebuilt: skills, supply chains, workshops, training programs.

Because it’s not enough to simply want to bring production back — you also need motivated and skilled people, the right machines and technicians to maintain and repair them, and an affordable, accessible space.

And even there, the roadblocks are numerous:

• In Marseille, real estate is both expensive and scarce — especially in accessible neighborhoods where people can realistically commute to work.

• There’s a severe lack of qualified professionals in the region, and fashion/craft schools are struggling to attract students.

• There are no workshops equipped with the specific sewing machines needed to handle tarpaulin and thick technical fabrics, available for custom, mid-sized production runs.

The competitive landscape is also tough:

There’s unfair competition from certain European countries where wages in manufacturing are half of what they are in France (like Portugal), and where there’s still real know-how.
At the same time, ultra-low-cost fast fashion continues to flood the market. The law meant to regulate this trend still hasn’t been passed…

We’re not against production in another European country. But we firmly believe that making something in Marseille is not the same as making it in Portugal.
It’s not the same social impact, not the same local economic fabric, not the same ambition — and frankly, we just don’t see the point in “shipping” our waste to a neighboring country to be transformed, only for it to come back as a finished product.

So we keep going. We train, we rebuild, we persist.
Because a product made in Marseille is much more than just a product. It’s a value chain, it’s jobs, it’s connection.
And thankfully, we can rely on the ecosystem of ESATs (sheltered work centers) and social integration workshops — true production labs, testing grounds, and stepping stones toward scaling up.