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The first edition of the Global Textile Technology & Engineering Show (GTTES 2015) was very well received. Now, bookings are on for the second edition is from December 4, 2017. The next edition is slated to open doors from February 1 to 3, 2019 at the Bombay Exhibition Centre, Goregaon, Mumbai. GTTES 2019 is being supported by the Department of Heavy Industry (DHI), Government of India/Maharashtra and has already received a significant response. A wave of excitement and anticipation from foreign exhibitors and enquiries from overseas delegates are a testimony to the success of the previous edition held in 2015.
The transparent process, focus on providing value for money and quality service in the exhibition has generated exceptional trust and appreciation for India ITME Society as organiser of both GTTES and India ITME series. GTTES 2019 aims to provide a platform to bring together leading strategists, experts, innovators and management developers from Europe, America and the Asia- Pacific region.
GTTES 2019 will offers participants a range of opportunities, from engaging with industry leaders, to showcasing products and services to an international audience. To enhance the effectiveness of the event, participants will be provided numerous opportunities to learn all aspects of latest industry resources and tools from business, governmental and academic.
India ITME Society has hit the right chord with the needs of the textile industry through this exclusive show that will capture the world's attention on strengths and opportunities in global textile industry, with special focus on post spinning segments like weaving, processing, knitting, embroidery, garmenting and more. Participants could enhance their business prospects and trade for textile machinery manufacturers by interacting with agents/dealers from India and across the world.
The Indian denim industry has been operating at 60 per cent to 70 per cent capacity due to a slowdown in demand and over capacity.
If the situation continues there can be more production cuts. Denim needs to be cut, sewn and washed before it can be marketed. These upstream activities are majorly done in the unorganized sectors of Delhi, Ulhasnagar and Bellary. These hubs mainly slowed down due to the liquidity crunch in the economy since demonetization and the slow acceptance of GST by small players. As 85 per cent of the fabric is sold in the domestic market, denim fabric mills are badly hit.
Since the upstream activities of garment sewing and washing will take a while to work smoothly with the formal banking system, no recovery of the market in the near future is foreseen.
The denim fabric manufacturing industry used to be the sunrise industry in the entire textile value chain of India. Over the last decade, it was growing at a healthy rate of 15 percent CAGR. Currently the industry has an annual installed capacity of 1.5 billion meters, which is the world’s largest, after China. The sales turnover of the industry is estimated to be around Rs 15,000 crores. This industry gives direct employment to five lakh workers.
At present there are 46 denim fabric mills operating in the country. The current domestic consumption of Indian denim fabric is 750 to 800 million meters. Denim fabric export is 200 million meters.
A new report has disclosed that the vast majority of the fashion industry has a totally unsustainable business model, as their so-called ‘fast fashion’ labels churn out cheap, disposable fashion, hitting stores as often as twice a week. The report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation notes, one garbage truck’s worth of textiles is wasted every second, and less than 1 per cent of clothing is recycled into new clothes. $500 billion is wasted every year on clothes that are barely worn and rarely recycled. The report puts forward a vision strategy for a ‘new textiles economy’ in which the lifespan of clothes is longer, they’re produced with fewer chemicals and renting, reselling and reuse become the norm.
In fact six ethical brands now offer an alternative to destructive ‘fast fashion’. Rent Your Wardrobe is a concept where people swap, rent and exchange the things they need and want ― is taking root in the fashion industry, and ‘Rent the Runway’ is a prime example. For $159 a month, the New York-based business lets customers rent four items of clothing at a time. For those with less money to spend, customers can borrow four pieces a month from the business’s 500-label inventory for $89. Jennifer Hyman, the company’s co-founder says they want to put H&M and Zara out of business. The company Rent The Runway is going strong, it managed $100 million in revenue and has raised $190 million in funding.
The Online Marketplace: When children grow out of clothes, toys and accessories companies like Kidizen address this issue through technology. It’s an online marketplace. The site has over 4,00,000 registered users in the US. Similarly Crossroads Trading Co buys, sell and trades second hand clothes. It offers second hand branded clothes at an affordable price.
Ryan Yasin designed Petit Pli, Clothes That Grow With Your Children. The material he developed, inspired by origami, is lightweight, waterproof and can expand in two directions, meaning that each piece can span seven sizes (from six months to three years). Swedish company Houdini Sportswear specializes in organic, chemical-free clothes that can be thrown on the compost heap when they’re beyond repair. More than 90 per cent of Houdini’s range, which is sold in 20 markets globally, is made from recycled, recyclable, renewable or biodegradable fabrics. Then there is Veja’s whose vegan sneakers have been seen on the feet of celebrities. The sneakers are made from sustainable cotton and rubber.
Since 1911, Savio has specialised in yarn-finishing segment, being a leading supplier of winding, twisting and rotor spinning machines, with manufacturing plants across Italy, China, India and the Czech Republic. As a manufacturer of textile machinery, the company offers winding systems that are ideal for many different needs as well as supporting customers in developing new applications to meet their needs.
At ShanghaiTex, the company exhibited their Polar Evolution winding machine — a high performance, energy saving and less labour-intensive product for Chinese customers. The machine on display was a freestanding fully automated one, provided with new features to process bobbins produced by ring frames not equipped with automatic doffing device. "Premium" winder is a solution for processing yarn bobbins whose formation is not originally "favourable" to reach efficiency, for example bobbins with tangles, entanglements and misplaced yarns tail. The newly designed hopper “Pace Sorter Feeder” will optimise the bobbing feeding for a fast and smooth bobbin flow.
In addition, special solutions have been engineered for automatic devices (bobbin preparation, transport, etc.) present in the fully automatic winder models to control and process springy elastic yarns. A special ‘Lycra kit’ is available for yarn end finder station of fully automatic winding machines, to ensure the highest efficiency for the bobbin preparation in the presence of single or dual core yarns. In downstream processing, the unwinding package and the take-up speed facilitate process to be more efficient.
Savio has a full range of grooved drums to cover all yarn types, counts and downstream processes. The EVO drums offer new capabilities to optimise both the unwinding speed of the packages and the package yarn content, through variable number of turns with different winding angles. The package shape is optimised to obtain advantages for a better unwinding ratio in the downstream process, for homogeneous package density and for lower rewinding breaks.
India’s anti-trust regulator has fined Monsanto Rs 15 million for being too slow in replying to questions in a competition probe of the company. The Competition Commission of India (CCI) last year ordered an investigation into whether the US seeds company had abused its position as a key supplier of genetically modified (GM) cotton seeds. The CCI, which is yet to complete its investigation, fined Monsanto for delays in filing a reply.
Monsanto responded to CCI’s queries in August but only after eight reminders issued between April 2016 and May this year, CCIs November order reported, “The commission hopes and trusts that full cooperation shall now be provided.” Monsanto India has said, they continues to extensively cooperate with the CCI in the investigation and have been providing information in response to requests received, This order is related to a procedural matter and is subject to further orders from the Delhi High Court. However, the company challenging the role of CCI and the nature of its probe, Monsanto has filed two separate cases with the Delhi High Court.
Monsanto is up in arms with Indian seed maker, Nuziveedu Seeds, one of the complainants at the CCI. That battle sparked a series of government moves that prompted the world's biggest seed company to withdraw from some businesses in India which has been one of the world's most important seed markets.
In viscose, how the raw material is generated goes a long way in determining its impact on environment. This is as per a recent Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study completed by SCS Global Services on behalf of Stella McCartney, focusing on the production of viscose fibre. Tobias Schultz, Director of Research and Development at SCS, says apparel companies are interested in identifying environmentally preferable fibres for use but little R&D had been conducted on viscose (also known as rayon).
Manmade cellulosic fibres from different sources may be functionally and chemically identical, but can have radically different environmental profiles based on the processes and technologies used in production, says Schultz. For example, manmade cellulosics from tropical hardwoods originating in Indonesia had significant negative impact associated with deforestation of the rainforest which were completely different from MMCF originating from well-managed forests in Sweden.
MMCF made from Belgian flax or recycled clothing emerged as favourable across a majority of impact categories. Asian production from Canadian boreal forest pulp, Chinese production from Indonesian rainforest pulp, Chinese production from Indonesian plantation pulp, and Indian cotton linter pulped in China had the heaviest environmental footprints among the scenarios examined.
The report was then peer-reviewed by representatives from Price Waterhouse Cooper, the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University, and the environmental not-for-profit organization Canopy. This level of scrutiny ensured the report’s findings were robust and reliable, he said.
The study should serve as a key resource for the apparel industry, as it provides insights into the wide range of impacts that a brand’s or supplier’s choice of MMCF fibre source can have, including impacts on species, forest ecosystems, freshwater, global climate and human health.
One of the most important conventions for the European technical textile industry took place recently in Stuttgart. The Aachen-Dresden-Denkendorf-International Textile Conference brought together 600 professionals from 28 countries across four continents from the textile, textile machinery and various user-industries. Economics and research experts reported on research results and marketable textile innovations in areas including high performance fibres, fibre composites and medical textiles.
Baden-Wurttemberg's Minister of Economic Affairs explained, "Our textile companies are no longer seen merely as consumer product manufacturers, but as suppliers of high-tech materials and products. In the automotive, engineering and medical technology industries, as well as in the construction industry, technical textiles are often the key to new concepts and products. That is why the innovative power of the textile industry is of extraordinary importance to our local economy."
This conference is held annually at one of the three locations. Together with this year's partner country USA, this year’s conference was showcased trend-setting developments and innovations in textile technology. The focus was on, among other things, additive manufacturing methods such as 3D textile printing and smart textiles which are currently being brought to the mainstream by IT companies from the USA as ‘intelligent problem solvers’.
Entrepreneurs from the textile and textile-machinery industries explained current developments, products and processes, notably the future fields of mobility and health. Various German textile research institutes showcased their know-how on these and several other ‘trend-fields’ under the For schungskuratorium Textile.V. (registered association) with the motto ‘From Idea to Practice", a transfer session presented ‘successful, publicly-funded collaborative programs, where products and processes were jointly developed by scientists and industry representatives and successfully implemented in the industry.
This year, Interfilière Paris and Paris Capitale de la Création felicitated Cheynet, a French company, specialising in elastics and yarn processing for over 70 years, with the ‘Designer of the Year’ title. The Cheynet Group, which is present internationally, serves varied markets with its products, including lingerie, swimwear, corsetry, medical-grade fabrics, activewear and ready-to-wear, footwear and men’s underwear. Grégoire Giraud, CEO of Groupe Cheynet exults, “We are delighted to receive this award. It is a real recognition by the profession of all the efforts made by all the teams at Cheynet, and of our truly fashion-focused collections.” Interfilière Paris trade show, the only international event exclusively focused on fabrics and textile accessories for the lingerie, beachwear, and activewear segments, will be held alongside the Salon International de la Lingerie from January 20 to 22, 2019 at Paris Expo – Porte de Versailles in Paris.
Cheynet’s R&D department is working on various innovations such as Brodex, which permits embroidery on elastics or rigid tape; dual-stretch elastics that stretch both lengthwise and crosswise; silicone applications — using them for their anti-slip potential (on the back of strapless bras, inside the top of stay-up stockings) — the company is now developing new surface applications for this material.
Anne Ménager, Marketing, Communications and R&D Director explains “Since 1948, Cheynet has gained a reputation as an expert in elastics manufacturing, with its mastery of technical criteria and the quality of its products. Today, Cheynet is working to uphold this reputation and pursue its development hand in hand with our industry partners. Boldness, courage, a modern spirit, enthusiasm, and agility are the values promoted by the teams at Cheynet, so that we remain the essential supplier of elastics,” Elastics are being used in many creative ways by lingerie and fashion designers. The athleisure trend, mixing style and athletic silhouettes, has contributed to the emergence of lingerie featuring wide chest bands and high waistbands; the ready-to-wear segment has stretch waistbands that incorporates flexibility and volume to silhouettes.
A few years ago, Steve Mazur and Eric Huang, co-founders of Detroit-based Ash & Erie, makers of shirts for shorter men, were sourcing suppliers to produce their classic woven, button-down shirts in Detroit; unable to find any, they are outsourcing manufacturing abroad. They are not alone, many fashion entrepreneurs in Detroit are not able to find infrastructure needed to grow locally. Owners say they face difficulties finding skilled, experienced professionals to sew, cut, and make patterns, as well as local manufacturers able to affordably produce smaller product batches.
It's a national problem. The industry has been sinking since the last three decades after factories started closing. Not having trained workers has an enormous effect on a company's bottom line as it takes much longer to become profitable and what’s more it hurts the company’s margins. Given this predicament, efforts are on to create a vibrant textile industry in Detroit. Important players in the city's design and manufacturing fields are working to boost local skilled labour and bring production back to their city. A new model for the $2.5 trillion fashion industry is expected to be created in Detroit.
The Director of Business Programs for Detroit Creative Corridor Center managed to get Detroit included in an Urban Manufacturing Alliance study which is analysing manufacturing needs, assets, gaps, and opportunities such as job creation and neighbourhood development for small to mid-size companies in cities such as Baltimore, Cleveland, Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Portland. For the assessment, four manufacturing focus groups were conducted in August, one of which targeted the fashion and textile industries.
These measures are expected to make companies such as Ash & Erie start manufacturing in Detroit. Steve Mazur, whose shirt company was featured on ABCs ‘Shark Tank,’ received a $1,50,000 investment from billionaire Mark Cuban. He and his partner are sourcing local production partners.
Sweden is a leader in waste-to-energy generator and earlier this year, the country began powering its incineration plants with trash purchased from neighbouring countries. With less than one per cent of Swedish household waste sent to landfills since 2011, the country has to source waste to keep its incineration plants running smoothly. Some of this waste is discarded clothing from fast fashion conglomerate H&M. Burning biofuels and waste is becoming an eco-friendly trend in a CSR strategy to move the power system away from using fossil fuel in an effort to help Sweden’s extensive emission-free portfolio of using wind, hydro and nuclear plants and ensure that the country achieves its goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2045.
Bloomberg reports a combined heat and power station in Vesteras has burned 15 tons of discarded H&M clothing in 2017, in addition to 4,00,000 tons of trash. Another plant in the neighbouring city of Eskilstuna — the location of the world’s first shopping mall selling only up-cycled or repaired goods — is also burning clothing from H&Ms warehouse.
The burning of perfectly good textiles does not go down well with countries that have numerous people with no decent clothes to wear. Jens Neren, Head of supplies at Malarenergi AB says for them, it’s a burnable material as their goal is to use only renewable and recycled fuels. H&Ms Head of Communications, Johanna Dahl, says the clothing the company sells to the Vesteras and Malarenergi plants are not really fit to sell in stores. “H&M does not burn any clothes that are safe to use, however, it is our legal obligation to make sure that clothes that contain mould or do not comply with our strict restriction on chemicals are destroyed.”
Recently, a Danish TV program accused H&M of yearly burning 12 tons of unsold, useable garments in Denmark. H&M admits that the situation isn’t ideal and says that the company is committed to finding alternatives solutions.
