Like a sprinter hitting their stride, Moscow's garment industry is leaving competitors in the dust. The city's factories now produce enough high-performance sportswear to dress every marathon runner from Red Square to Vladivostok—with enough spandex left over to bungee cord the Kremlin twice.
Official figures reveal a 32.3% surge in production since January—77,300 units of swimsuits, ski suits, and gym wear that could stretch from Luzhniki Stadium to the moon if laid end-to-end. Behind these numbers stand 135 local manufacturers stitching everything from toddler leotards to suits that make middle-aged dads look vaguely athletic.
Take "Aliera," a factory where sewing machines hum like a swarm of mechanical bees. Last year, they produced enough figure skating costumes to outfit every Bolshoi Ballet understudy—200,000 garments that cling to bodies like morning mist on the Moskva River.
Then there's "Skin of Angel," whose name sounds like a rejected Bond villain but actually crafts workout gear so advanced, scientists briefly considered classifying their moisture-wicking fabric as a new form of dark matter. Their 16,000-unit output could wrap every dumbbell in Moscow's 4,300 gyms.
As one factory CEO quipped while adjusting a mannequin's lycra leggings: "In Soviet Russia, sportswear wears you. Now? We're dressing the world." The city's next challenge: producing enough sweatbands to mop up the competition's tears.
