India’s Wimbledon Connection

The towels—green and purple for gentlemen, and a colour that continually changes for ladies—are the most-prized souvenirs from the annual tournament. Thousands of fans are known to pay large sums to purchase the towels designed for the year’s tournament. Even the most famous players, who are required to return the two towels handed to them for every match, are known to make off with them. Roger Federer, for instance, once admitted how he used to keep at least two towels per tournament as souvenirs and give the rest to his friends. Bob Bryan, a doubles player, has spoken of his stockpile of Wimbledon towels.

Few know that these prized keepsakes are not made either in England or some nearby European country. They are, in fact, produced by an Indian company at a factory in a placed called Vapi, Gujarat. Welspun India Ltd, a textile manufacturing firm, which bought the British towel manufacturer Christy in 2006, has been making these towels for a few years now. In 2010, their production was shifted from Portugal to Gujarat. Every year, this factory churns out around 100,000 towels, some 6,000 for the tournament and the rest for sale to spectators and fans at large. From this year onwards, after having convinced the Wimbledon organisers, the company will begin selling the iconic item online in India as well. Confirming this, a Welspun employee says, “It’s a small market in India currently. But we hope that the craze for the towels reaches here too.”