Isaura Daniel*
São Paulo – Around 40 years ago, the women who lived in the city of Monte Sião, mostly daughters, granddaughters and great-granddaughters of Italians, knitted at home, while their husbands worked on the land. The women knitted by hand. When, in the 1970s, tourists started showing interest in the hot springs of the city, the women from Monte Sião started selling their knitted jerseys in the windows of their houses. From then to the purchase of their first machines, it took just a few years and Monte Sião soon started being called the National Knit Capital.
The production of knitted jerseys is now one of the main activities of the small city, hidden among the mountains of the state of Minas Gerais. There are around 1,200 industries in the sector, all small, according to João Tadeu Dorta Machado, who is the president of the Monte Sião Trade and Industry Association (ACIMS) and director for Industry, Trade, Tourism and Culture at the City Hall. This year, the industries expect a 15% to 20% increase in sales, according to Machado. Currently, their production capacity is four million items a month.
The city is now less than two months away from the sales season, which begins in March and ends in July. The knitted items, despite no longer being made out of wool or thick threads as they were in the past, are still sought most for the winter. That is, incidentally, one of the efforts made by businessmen from Monte Sião: showing consumers and retailers that knit jerseys may also be used in the warm season. Each year, the city promotes a fair for the sale of the jerseys. This year, the National Knit Fair (Fenat) will take place between April 15 and 23.
During the fair, which includes around 60 exhibitors, retailers and consumers from all around Brazil visit the city. Fenat is going to take place between 7:00 am and 07:00 pm in the Monte Sião Exhibition Centre. Tourists, however, do not only visit the city at this time of the year. They continue travelling to the city to visit the neighbouring springs. Monte Sião is, for example, 70 kilometres away from the city of Águas de Lindóia and 30 kilometres away from Serra Negra. Both cities are famous for their hot springs.
For export
Importers, however, only come to the city once in a while. In Monte Sião just four companies export. "We participated in some fairs in Paris and Las Vegas, and have representatives abroad, but over the last four years the barrier for sales abroad has been China. Some companies export, but at small volumes and the products are more elaborate, with very Brazilian characteristics," stated Machado.
Boutiques in Europe, the Caribbean and Saudi Arabia, according to him, are among the foreign clients of the knit industries of Monte Sião. The most recent fashion parades, however, included knitted products, and this may boost the sales of businessmen from the city. The industries are betting on that to sell more on the domestic market. What may affect the sales of knit products, however, is the forecast of warmer temperatures all around the world.
However, the producers of knitted products in Monte Sião are going to work to make their industry grow. According to Machado, an effort is already being made in this direction. Businessmen are investing in training and are entering the fashion world to present novelties and innovation in all their collections. The capacity of design, according to Machado, is one of the main characteristics of the knitted products made in Monte Sião.
There are in the city around 800 shops of knitted jerseys. Apart from the industrialization and sale of jerseys, however, other sectors also power the economy of Monte Sião. They are the production of porcelain and agriculture.
Service
FENAT
From April 15 to 23
From 07:00 am to 07:00 pm
Monte Sião Exhibition and Leisure Centre
Further information: (+55 35) 3621-3382
*Translated by Mark Ament
