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At its recent editions of Texworld USA and Apparel Sourcing, exhibitors showcased new bio-based sources for fibers that help the industry to move the industry closer to circularity.
Texworld USA’s Innovation Spotlight showcased new innovations in bio-synthetics, smart textiles, and circular design solutions. The Re:Source Library offered sustainable textile sourcing and supply chain consulting where established fibers and fabrics evolved to meet the demands of circular and sustainable design needs. Participants in the spotlight included Dr. Luke Haverhal, CEO of Natural Fiber Welding; Mike Savarie, sustainability enterprise catalyst at Hemp Black; Daniel Mota Pinto, assistant director at Scoop, and Ericka Gutierrez, manager of business development and marketing for North America at Lenzing Group.
The show also focused on the origin of raw materials which for most companies includes pre- and post-consumer textile waste, particularly cotton, such as Lenzing’s Refibra technology by Tencel, which involves upcycling cotton scraps from garment production, and Natural Fiber Welding’s processing of recycled cotton yarn for reuse and additive products.
Other materials in the showcase included Brrr’s embedded technology, which uses recycled polymers like post-consumer polyester chips and post-consumer nylon resin to spin recycled polyester and nylon yarns. Scoop’s Musgo was also featured, which incorporates optical fibers for wearable technology.
Similar biomaterials in textiles include Piñatex, a company based in the Philippines that is using pineapple leaf fibers to make its materials, and Italian firm Orange Fiber, which is using orange peels to make a cellulose-based fiber and materials.
Eurovet is pleased to inform the lastest development as the company signed a partnership with the CHINA KNITTING BRANDS INNOVATION DESIGN WEEK (CKIW) to transfer our Interfilière Hong-Kong fair side by side to them next April, 9th to 11th, 2020 at the Shenzhen International Convention and Exhibition Centre.
This is a crucial step Eurovet is making to take forward the connect with the rapid developments in the China market and which will enable us to work with a Chinese partner duly implemented within the Chinese body fashion industry and to forge a closer and more long-term relationship with them and their supportive associations.
With over 15 years of experience in organizing our trade fair in Shanghai, we are confident that exhibitors and visitors will benefit from the synergies of the collaboration of the two fairs, creating this way the best common tool to serve the needs of the fabric makers, the manufacturers, the brands and the consumers in this modern and global age, in Shenzhen now, and in Shanghai next 24 and 25 of September 2020 with the common launch of the Shanghai Lingerie and Swimwear brand show, side by side to Interfilière Shanghai.
Sportswear Pro 2020 is a new international exhibition dedicated exclusively to customised and on-demand sportswear manufacturing. From sample design and automated digital workflows, to innovative materials and integrated wearable technologies, the exhibition will present sustainable, faster and leaner production solutions to sports and activewear brands and manufacturers.
Taking place on March 24th to 27th at Feria de Madrid, Sportswear Pro is an opportunity for you to see the latest technologies and innovations available on the market.
The event is co-located with FESPA Global Print Expo - Europe’s largest speciality and wide format print exhibition European Sign Expo - The leading event for non-printed signage & visual communications.
Confirmed exhibiting brands include Gemini CAD Systems, MACPI, FK Group SPA, EFI Reggiani, Crea Solution, ZSK Stickmaschinen, Seit Elettronica, Pattern Room Sales, Caron Technology, Tajima amongst many others.
Numero Uno introduces an individualistic capsule collection of denim jackets- ‘Roar me Loud‘. Coming from the conventional style but a must have for us all are Denim jackets. With the ever-spiraling trends in the fashion industry, the denim group has always transcended the vogue elements with their wise formulae and have eternally been in high demand.
This season Numero Uno, India’s only indigenously manufactured denim label brings back the street style look for the fashionable hybrids. This capsule collection has a very distinctive approach, which is all about self-expression, speaking your mind, standing tall in the crowd and creating your own kind. Depicting personal thoughts into ideas to wearing it unapologetically, has been the sole idea behind this collection. Characteristics like fearless attitude, integrity and acceptance of one’s own flaws outline the essence of each piece.
Designs from patch to artwork, fringes to taping, and these denim jackets look sturdy and chic. These reflect a stylish self-expression that is a sure-fire way to make a statement and a definite head turner. Pair them with blue rugged jeans or wear them effortlessly with your joggs for a style statement.
Numero Uno, one of India’s first indigenously manufactured denim labels, was incorporated in 1987 by Hi Fashion Clothing Co., the Flagship brand of Numero Uno Clothing Ltd. Over the years, Numero Uno Jeanswear has transformed into a dynamic and perceptive label for the youth. Today, it has the privilege of being one of the few power brands that fuses international trends, innovative fabrics, washes, treatments and accessible pricing.
Kering is widely appreciated for its efforts and actions among a small number of high-performing companies out of thousands that were scored. The Group’s determination to cut emissions, mitigate climate risks and help develop a low-carbon economy have been highlighted. Focusing on becoming more energy efficient in the Group’s operations, these efforts has led to the reduction of 30% carbon intensity in the Group’s stores since 2015.
CDP’s annual environmental disclosure and scoring process is widely recognized as the gold standard of corporate environmental transparency. In 2019, over 525 investors with over US$96 trillion in assets and 125 major purchasers with US$3.6 trillion in procurement spend requested companies to disclose data on environmental impacts, risks and opportunities through CDP’s platform and over 8,400 responded.
The “Climate A List” comprises companies from around the world that have been identified as demonstrating a superior approach to climate change mitigation, only 2% of companies achieved an A score. For the 2nd year in a row, Kering is the only Luxury group to be included in this list.
“Our inclusion, once again, on the 2019 CDP Climate Change ‘A List’ reflects our continuous efforts to reduce our carbon footprint and rewards our recent decision to offset all our remaining emissions to support the conservation of biodiversity around the world.” said Marie-Claire Daveu, Chief Sustainability Officer and Head of international institutional affairs of Kering. “We are proud to be recognized as one of the top companies when it comes to take action to fight climate change and will persevere to meet our 2025 target of a 50% carbon footprint reduction.”
A global Luxury group, Kering manages the development of a series of renowned Houses in Fashion, Leather Goods, Jewelry and Watches: Gucci, Saint Laurent, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen, Brioni, Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo, Qeelin, Ulysse Nardin, Girard-Perregaux, as well as Kering Eyewear.
"Viewed as both an opportunity and threat, digital transformation enables manufacturers to save time and costs by enabling them to manufacture small quantities of products profitably. However, it also leads to a loss of human touch in fashion design and garment making. Digital transformation is necessary to deal with sustainability pressures that currently face the fashion industry. As natural resources are dwindling, the cost of raw materials and carbon and financial costs of manual garment sampling and shipping back and forth from manufacturers in Asia to Europe and the US is also increasing. The only way to meet this growing consumer demand is to digitise and streamline manual processes."
Viewed as both an opportunity and threat, digital transformation enables manufacturers to save time and costs by enabling them to manufacture small quantities of products profitably. However, it also leads to a loss of human touch in fashion design and garment making. Digital transformation is necessary to deal with sustainability pressures that currently face the fashion industry. As natural resources are dwindling, the cost of raw materials and carbon and financial costs of manual garment sampling and shipping back and forth from manufacturers in Asia to Europe and the US is also increasing. The only way to meet this growing consumer demand is to digitise and streamline manual processes.
Lack of creativity slowing digitisation’s progress
However, the progress of digital transformation in fashion has been slow as digital design is based on CAD/CAM solutions, which are not creative enough to empower
designers. The solutions that are currently in trend such as CLO3D are driven by technical specifications that do not bridge the gap between creative design and product creation.
Secondly, solutions providers present the same tools to fashion as they do to automotive, aerospace and architecture. They ask the designers to drop their manual designs and techniques in favor of a mouse and keyboard instead of plugging their creativity seamless into the supply chain.
New talents, data analysis, digitisation to ensure good returns
To fasttrack digital transformation in fashion, brands need to hire new talent graduating from fashion colleges with 3D design skills and an appetite for creative digital design in place of traditional methods of fashion design. These new recruits should be appointed alongside the current crop of designers and tasked with developing the next collections collaboratively, to leverage both approaches. Their designs should be integrated with the actual designs and development of products.
The top three solutions that promise good return on investments for fashion retailers include data analytics solutions, consumer engagement and the digital avatar the use of CGI to be able to have digital experiences around the products. A potential future direction that the fashion industry can adopt is to implement digitised fashion illustration at the first stage to connect it to 3D CAD/CAM software and equipment for on-demand manufacturing, then eventually the digital product presentation tools at the consumer end.
3D digital design is still notably absent from the curriculums of top fashion colleges as the preference for hand-drawing and painstaking manual design techniques still dominates amongst senior designers and creative directors. However, a new generation of designers is emerging who are exploring 3D digital designs through online tutorials and forums in place of being taught formally at university. Bucking the tradition of fashion college education, these designers are redefining the future of fashion.
Apparel manufacturers and exporters can no longer avail of the Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS). The decision is expected to hit their cash flows and bottom line.
Under MEIS, garment and made-up firms were receiving four per cent of the free on board value of exports as incentives. MEIS has been scrapped retrospectively since March 2019. Apparel exporters have already booked orders by exact costing and they say if they had known they were not going to get the incentive, they would have acted differently. As it is the decision is expected to lead to losses and cash flow issues because between March to December whatever has been shipped will not get the MEIS benefits.
Also, the rebate on state and central taxes and levies has been compared with rebate on stare levies, creating a lot of confusion. And finally bringing in DGFT for correcting disbursal of benefits is expected to create problems. There is a special one-time additional ad hoc incentive of up to one per cent of free on board value for exports of apparel and made-ups with a cap of Rs 600 crores to offset the difference between the new rebate on state and central taxes and levies and the previous rebate on state levies plus MEIS from March 7, 2019 to December 31, 2019.
Many multinational clothing brands, which source billions of dollars worth of garment from Bangladesh, have contacted BGMEA to open their outlets in the country with a burgeoning economy. The BGMEA on its part plans to urge the government to make it mandatory for all global brands to source all the garment items from local manufacturers if they want to open retail outlets here.
However, a number of foreign retailers have recently complained that the complex local tariff structure is holding them back. For instance, a French company has to pay 130 per cent customs duty for many of the garments and shoes it imports, even for those made in Bangladesh. The tariff structure and the process the company follows to remain compliant in Bangladesh are restricting it to offer a reasonable price-quality ratio and support its endeavour to protect the environment, according to the letter. Over the past 10 years, the company has opened 60 big-box stores in India and over 50 per cent of the items it sells in the Indian stores are ‘Made in India.’
A footwear supplier and a tent supplier of an European company located inside the export processing zone in Chattogram have already received regulatory approval to sell 10 per cent of last year’s unsold inventory to the local market. This allows the company to reduce the price of our items by approximately 50 per cent and make them accessible to more Bangladeshi sportspeople. The company plans to seek BGMEA’s support for research and find legal possibilities to get similar permissions for its garment suppliers.
H&M’s online sales increased 30 per cent in 2019 thanks to a strategy of integrating online and in-store experiences. Over the past couple of years, the fashion retailer has been slowing down its physical store expansion strategy. Profit has been negatively affected by a weak sales development in the physical stores of the H&M brand. H&M has a physical store presence in 71 markets worldwide, but it only sells online in 47 of those, four of which were added in 2018. This suggests that improving its online presence has been a real focus for H&M. The threat from rival retailers, both online and offline, is partly responsible for H&M’s change of strategy. Over the last ten to fifteen years H&M and other fast-fashion brands have enjoyed great success in the fashion sector thanks to trend-led products, a speedy production process and large store networks. Now, the disruption is happening online, and H&M has been relatively slow to adapt.
Mobile is especially important, as H&M’s target market of under 25s are heavy mobile users. H&M only started selling online in 2010. Apparently the retailer was slow to see the opportunity that e-commerce presented, or else thought that its store network was enough to see off online competition.
Following a meeting with Thorsten Bargfrede, Head of Political, Trade and Communications Section of the delegation of the European Union to Sri Lanka and Maldives and EU representatives, Prasanna Ranatunga, Minister of Industry, Export, Investment Promotion, Tourism and Aviation, claimed that the European Union’s Generalised Scheme of Preferences Plus tax concessions to Sri Lanka will continue until 2023 and there would be no change to the related observation process.
GSP+ tax concession is mostly granted to the garment industry in the country and 60 percent of Sri Lanka’s garment exports go to EU member countries. The garment industry represents about 43 per cent of the country’s total exports and earns around $5 billion to the country annually. Noting that EU investors were keen on investing in Sri Lanka, Bargfrede requested for a resumption of flight services by the Sri Lankan Airlines to EU countries.
