Active Clothing Co Ltd is a Punjab-based “design-to-shelf” partner that takes a sketch from a global fashion brand and delivers finished garments to stores - all under one roof. It began in 2002 as the official distributor for Levi’s and Dockers in Upper North India, added retail the next year, and from 2005 built its own factories step by step, a path that created the recurring approach behind everything it does: own the full chain from design needle to retail rack, and use the cash flows from one stage to fund the next. Today it exports to more than 30 countries, employs over 2,300 people, and runs its manufacturing and retail engines as two sides of the same coin - making clothes for the world’s brands and selling those same brands to customers across Northern India.
Business segments
Two engines that feed each other - a design-to-shelf manufacturing platform serving global brands, and a multi-brand retail and distribution network that brings those same labels to customers across Northern India.
1. Design-to-shelf manufacturing: where the company makes clothes for the world’s biggest brands
Global fashion labels send a design concept; Active Clothing turns it into finished, certified garments inside a single integrated factory - no middlemen, no handoffs.
- One roof, every step - the Fatehgarh Sahib facility covers 230,000 square feet and houses design, 3D prototyping, knitting, sewing, printing, embroidery, garment dyeing, and washing, so a brand’s order never leaves the building until it is packed for shipping.
- Four product engines under one ceiling - annual capacity of 4.65 million units is split across sweaters (2.4 million, using 352 computerized machines from Shima Seiki, Stoll and Kauo Heng), t-shirts (1 million, across four lines with over 100 specialized machines), jackets (500,000, with more than 500 dedicated machines), and fly-knit shoe uppers (750,000).
- Design sells the factory - an in-house R&D centre and a virtual design studio let brands see 3D garment simulations, tweak colours and patterns in real time, and approve digital samples before a single yarn is cut, which slashes waste and eliminates the back-and-forth of physical sample shipping.
- Certifications open doors - the factory holds a bundle of global compliance badges including WRAP, SEDEX-4 Pillar, GOTS, and the Global Recycled Standard, which is why brands like Levi’s, Adidas, and Tchibo trust it as a single-source partner for complex categories like infant sweaters and import-substitute shoe uppers.
- Raw materials locked the day the order lands - an ERP system automatically triggers raw-material buying when an order is booked, so the company fixes its input costs immediately and avoids price swings eating into the job.
2. Multi-brand retail and distribution: where the company sells the brands it makes
Active Clothing is the largest Levi’s marketing partner across Chandigarh, Punjab, J&K and Himachal Pradesh, and it runs a growing network of its own multi-brand stores - it is both a brand’s factory and its shopfront.
- Distributor with a sales force, not just a warehouse - the company provides real-time sales tracking, brick-by-brick market analysis, pricing support and end-to-end logistics to brands like Levi’s, Celio, Flying Machine, Arrow and Rare Rabbit, reaching over 200 multi-brand retail outlets across Northern India.
- Seven own stores, and a new chain taking shape - it operates seven multi-brand stores under the “Active” name in Punjab, and in 2026 launched “NUEMO,” a new retail format aimed at Tier-2 and Tier-3 towns, with stores already opened in locations like Bhawanigarh, Bathinda, Kharar, Sangrur and Barnala.
- Flexible formats for small-town India - NUEMO stores come in three sizes: flagship stores of 7,000-8,000 square feet, mid-size stores of 2,000-3,000 square feet, and focused 1,000-2,000-square-foot formats that can be men-only, women-only or kids-only depending on local demand.
- The distribution roots run deep - the company started as Levi’s official distributor in 2002, and as recently as FY21 retail sales of readymade garments contributed half of total turnover, showing that selling clothes has always been as central to the business as making them.
Group structure and partners
Active Clothing is a single-entity company with no subsidiaries or joint ventures, run by a tight-knit promoter group and backed by machinery partnerships with the world’s largest knitting-machine makers.
- Standalone structure - the company has no subsidiary, joint venture or associate company; all operations sit inside Active Clothing Co Limited itself.
- Promoter-led, with deep textile expertise - Managing Director Rajesh Kumar Mehra holds a textile-technology degree and is supported by a leadership team whose COO, CEO, VP and Production Director each bring 11 to 27 years of industry experience; promoters collectively hold roughly 73.6% of the equity.
- Machine partners are global leaders - a long-term agreement with Ning Bo Cixing of China (the world’s largest maker of computerized flat knitting machines) will supply 600 advanced machines for the new knit-to-shape factory, while an earlier deal with Japan’s Shima Seiki added capacity for another one million garments a year.
- Brand relationships are direct and contractual - manufacturing agreements signed with Adidas India and Puma Sports India in October 2024 made the company a Tier-1 supplier to both, deepening a customer list that already included Levi’s, Bestseller, Next and Tchibo.