Budgy Smuggler, Australian for Swimwear.
We ask Chief Smuggler, Linny...
"Since we started, nearly 20 years ago… every pair of Budgy Smuggler swimwear has been proudly made in Sydney, Australia.
It’s made in the same factory of some great Australian brands before us like Zimmerman, Jets and of course Speedo itself when it was Australian owned. Most or all of those brands have shipped manufacturing totally offshore in search of understandably higher margins but also with less control on the manufacturing cycle, environmental impact & labour standards.
People often ask why we also don’t move to a cheaper manufacturing base… they ask If you can save $5-10 a pair and you make half a million garments… couldn’t you make $5M more? In our mind, that’s not how it works.
There’s two things that are crucial in our minds at Budgy Smuggler. The first is quality and the second is the feeling that you have when you put on a pair of smugglers.
On the quality front, it’s hard to beat being able to track your production through every step. We want it to be quality you can be proud of and that people in our home country, Australia, are proud of.
The second is the feeling that you have when you put on a pair of Smugglers. We want you to literally feel like you’re putting on a piece of Australia, to a brand that cares about its home country, about its manufacturing eco system and that doesn’t want to mass produce our core product like pretty much everyone else.
It’s also the right call for the environment. While it’s true we could save $5-10 a pair if we made overseas, nearly ⅓ of what’s made overseas ends up in land fill or discounted to below cost… so what’s the true cost?
And lastly, there’s something we really love about seeing our swimwear being crafted. Our factory is run by our original cutter, Wayne, who has been with us for 2 x decades!
He’s got no plans of stopping any time soon and neither do we.