Portugal Is Marimekko’s Biggest European Source: 13 Factories, 15 Percent of Products Sold, and the Finnish Brand’s Two Oldest Supplier Relationships

Fifteen percent of the products Marimekko sold in 2025 were made in Portugal, according to the Finnish design house’s own breakdown of where its goods come from. That puts Portugal third among Marimekko’s production countries, behind China (20 percent) and Thailand (17 percent), and ahead of every other European source, including Türkiye (14 percent), Estonia (8 percent), Lithuania (7 percent) and Finland itself (5 percent). Marimekko’s partner-supplier list, last updated in June 2026, shows who does the work: 13 Portuguese factories run by 12 suppliers, employing 2,464 people, almost all of them in the textile valleys of the Minho. It also shows that the Portuguese relationships are, on average, older than those in any of the brand’s larger Asian or Turkish sources — and that the two longest-standing suppliers on the entire list are Portuguese.

The list covers suppliers and manufacturers with which Marimekko has a direct contractual relationship and, according to the company, 99 percent of its product purchases from external suppliers in 2025. It names 97 factories belonging to 77 suppliers in 21 countries, with each factory’s address, product category, number of workers and the year the relationship began. The origin shares come from a separate chart on Marimekko’s supply-chain page, which measures each country’s share of products sold. On the same page the company says a network of around 140 contract manufacturers produces its products, and that 54 percent of the products it sold in 2025 were made in Europe and 46 percent in Asia. Marimekko also runs its own textile printing factory in Helsinki, which prints around a million metres of fabric a year.

How Portugal compares

NorthSouth HQ compiled the supplier list by country. Portugal has fewer factories than China (22) or Türkiye (14), but more separate suppliers than any country except China, because each Portuguese supplier typically runs one plant; in China and Türkiye, intermediaries and groups such as Jiaxing Newtex or Zorluteks account for several factories each. By headcount, the Portuguese factories employ 12 percent of the 20,612 workers on the list. The striking difference is tenure. The median Portuguese relationship began in 2015, against 2021 for the Chinese factories and 2023 for the Turkish ones. Only three of the 13 Portuguese factories were added in 2020 or later; in China the figure is 12 of 22, and in Türkiye 10 of 14.

Source: Marimekko partner-supplier list 2025 (updated June 2026) and Marimekko’s chart of product origin as a share of 2025 sales; NorthSouth HQ calculations. Supplier counts are distinct supplier names against factories in each country. Worker totals exclude two non-Portuguese rows given only as approximate figures. Finland excludes Marimekko’s own Helsinki printing factory, which is not on the external-supplier list.

The oldest names on the list

The earliest “supplier since” date anywhere on Marimekko’s list belongs to TMG – Tecidos para Vestuário e Decoração in Vila Nova de Famalicão, which has supplied Marimekko with garments and fabrics since 1980 and employs 182 people at the listed factory. Second is Belfama, a home-textile maker in Moreira de Cónegos, Guimarães, since 1991. The next-oldest relationship, with a German fabric maker, dates from 1998. Two more Portuguese suppliers predate 2010: Domingos de Sousa & Filhos in Guimarães (home textiles, 220 workers, since 2007) and Fiorima in Braga (accessories, 90 workers, since 2009). GPSA Têxteis, a 40-worker garment maker listed at the same Famalicão street address as TMG, followed in 2013.

The middle cohort is mostly garments and home textiles from the Braga district. António Salgado & Cª in Guimarães (home textiles, 55 workers) and Meamstyle in Barcelos (garments, 80) both date from 2015; Alda Têxteis in Póvoa de Lanhoso, a 49-worker fabric and home-textile plant listed under the supplier name Happyprobability International, from 2017; Gubec, an Esposende garment firm, from 2018; and Pedrosa & Rodrigues in Barcelos (garments, 120) from 2019. Gubec added a second factory, Títulos e Rubricas in Vila Verde, in 2024. In home textiles specifically, Portugal and Estonia each account for five of the 18 factories on the list that make them, more than any other country.

The newest and biggest: towels and tableware

The two largest Portuguese plants are also two of the three most recent additions. Mundotêxtil, a home-textile maker in Vizela, has supplied Marimekko since 2020 and lists 560 workers. Grestel – Produtos Cerâmicos, the stoneware manufacturer in Vagos, in the Aveiro district, behind the Costa Nova brand, joined in 2024 and, with 887 workers, is the largest factory in the European Union on Marimekko’s list; only five factories in Thailand, Indonesia, Türkiye and Pakistan are bigger. It is also the only European source of tableware: the other six tableware factories on the list are in China and Thailand, among them Thailand’s Crown Ceramics, the largest factory on the list with 1,770 workers. Grestel is the only Portuguese factory on the list outside the Braga district.

The pattern is different from that of the Swedish fashion group H&M, whose public factory list this publication analysed last week. H&M names 63 Portuguese factories, more than half of them listed for under three years, consistent with a large buyer adding nearshore capacity quickly. Marimekko’s Portuguese base is smaller and older, with a median relationship of about a decade, and it is weighted towards home textiles and tableware rather than fast-turnover fashion. For Portuguese manufacturers, the two lists describe two ways into a Nordic brand’s supply chain: volume through an expanding sourcing network, or long tenure with a design house that prints in Helsinki and has products made around its patterns elsewhere.

What to watch

Marimekko’s net sales grew 4 percent in 2025, to €189.6 million, and 2 percent in the first half of 2026, to €85.3 million, according to its half-year financial report; second-quarter sales were 1 percent below the record comparison period, with retail sales in Finland weaker and Asia-Pacific up 16 percent. The company publishes its third-quarter interim report on 4 November. The supplier list is updated once a year, so the next test of whether Portugal’s share is holding comes with the 2026 list, due around mid-2027. Two caveats apply to the figures above: the 15 percent is a share of products sold, not of euros spent with suppliers, and worker counts describe whole factories, most of which also make goods for other brands.