Next total group sales are up 2.5 per cent. Finance sales rose 12.1 per cent. Group pre-tax profit was down 0.4 per cent on last year. Retail profit fell 21 per cent but online profit was up 13.8 per cent while profit after tax dipped slightly. The group expects profits to marginally decline by around 1.1 per cent in the current financial year. The company remains committed to third-party label business. While that means it sells brands that compete with its own label, it recognises that customers will go online and will find those other brands somewhere else, so it would rather it finds them via Next than via its competitors.

For the year, Next full-price sales in retail stores fell by 7.9 per cent. Its retail store sales dropped from a year earlier, while online sales rose. This is particularly significant because online sales are now almost as big as those through retail stores and chances are that by next year, they will be bigger. Last year saw it negotiating a rent reduction of 29 per cent on the leases that it renewed and further reductions on leases renewed in the previous year. It expects similar cuts this year too.

North America-based apparel brands and retailers recently launched a new platform, ‘Nirapon’, to oversee the ongoing safety, training and helpline efforts at the Alliance-listed garment factories. A total of 21 global apparel brands with more than a dozen of former Alliance-signatory members, including Gap, Walmart, JC Penny and VF, have joined the locally-managed organisation with the commitment to sustaining the culture of factory safety in Bangladesh. 

The Alliance for Bangladesh Worker Safety had shut down its operations in the readymade garment (RMG) sector here as its transitional period ended on December 31. Some 29 apparel companies formed the platform in 2013 immediately after the Rana Plaza disaster to improve the workplace safety in the RMG industry. 

Nirapon will monitor the factories from which its member brands source to verify that they continue to meet the National Action Plan harmonised standards for structural, fire, and electrical safety, have implemented standardised training programmes focused on worker safety and continue to make the helpline service, Amader Kotha, available to their factory workers

 Nirapon would serve as a single point of contact between its members and the factories on these issues and would also focus on building local capacity to manage fire and building safety to sustain the investments in worker safety that have been made to date. 

The National Council of Textile Organisations (NCTO) held its 16thAnnual Meeting from March 19-21 in Washington, DC.  The organisation elected Leib Oehmig, CEO, Glen Raven, Inc as its Chairman. Glen Raven is an innovative leader in textile research and development, dying, spinning, weaving and finishing, and distribution and logistics.

NCTO also appointed David Roberts, CEO, CAP Yarns, Inc as the Vice-Chairman of the organisation. A specialty yarn manufacturer, CAP Yarns develops unique yarns for the knitting and weaving industry.

The US employed around was 594,147 people in its textile supply chain in 2018.  The total value of shipments for U.S. textiles and apparel was $76.8 billion. Its exports of fiber, textiles and apparel were $30.1 billion in 2018. 

Jeanologia, the world leader in the development of eco-efficient technology, launched H2 Zero, a revolutionary technology allowing the complete elimination of discharge in the textile industry. H2 Zero manages to eliminate the textile industry’s discharge, recycling the little water that it needs by using a combination of its jean production technologies. This tool has been successfully tried and tested by a few brands. 

The technology contributes to the complete dehydration and detoxification of the textile industry. Furthermore, it allows the industry to grow by 50 per cent for the next three years in its ecological income statement. Jeanologia is the first European company to launch an ecological income statement through which it measures cubic meters of contaminated water that do not go into our rivers and seas, thanks to their technology and services.

Peraga will be held in Indonesia from March 28 to 30, 2019. This is a comprehensive international standard TPT (Textile and Textile Product) industry exhibition comprising Indo Intertex, Inatex, Indo Dyechem and Indo Texprint. These are four interrelated exhibitions. Indo Intertex will display a variety of machinery and equipment for the textile and garment industry. Inatex will display fiber, yarn, fabric, accessories and fashion products as well as nonwoven industry products. Indo Dyechem will display chemical, coloring and finishing process equipment while Indo Texprint will display printing machines digital textiles.

As many as 15,000 visitors, entrepreneurs and professionals are expected. Various seminars are also lined up on topics like sustainable industries, creative industries, and start-up fashion businesses. No less lively will be a competition on fashion design and training on digital textile printing.

In the era of Industry 4.0 factories in Indonesia are updating and using machine tools that are fast, inexpensive and easy to operate and environmentally friendly, and getting more efficient and able to compete. The 2017 and 2018 exhibitions saw an increased volume of business transactions, which is expected to increase at the 17th edition this year. The theme of the exhibition is Making Indonesia 4.0.

For the fourth quarter Guess revenues rose 5.7 per cent. The American retail revenues was down 0.7 per cent, while comps were up six per cent while American wholesale revenues for Guess jumped 19.2 per cent during the quarter. European revenues increased 4.1 per cent, while retail comps were flat. Asia was the strongest market for Guess, with revenues increasing 21.7 per cent and retail comps up 13 per cent during the quarter.

For the whole fiscal year net revenue increased 10.4 per cent. Retail revenues in the Americas fell one per cent while retail comp sales including e-commerce increased four per cent. Revenue for the Americas wholesale segment jumped 13.6 per cent. European revenues increased 14.4 per cent. Retail comp sales including e-commerce increased five per cent, while Asia revenues climbed 25.7 per cent. Retail comp sales in Asia were up 15 per cent.

Guess was also able to expand the company’s operating margin, despite cost pressures related to its transition to new distribution center in Europe. For the fiscal year ending February 1, 2020, the company is expecting consolidated net revenue to increase between four and five per cent and for the upcoming first quarter an increase in sales between 2.5 per cent and 3.5 per cent.

Twenty-two years ago, the fashion market in China was conservative and not very established. But now, the market looks very different. In general, Chinese customers like and want the same styles that fashion consumers everywhere else are into. This is the right approach for western brands looking to break into China. People in China want western product as it is. But it has to be marketed in a way that it fits the Chinese model. Failing to follow this advise is part of the reason many brands have found themselves in hot water in China over the last year or so.

While some of the initial buzz about Chinese consumers in the luxury fashion market was related to their spending outside the country, this paradigm is changing. Half of all luxury spending in China is expected to be domestic by next year. That means, brands that don’t have a physical presence in China will be missing out on a large chunk of Chinese fashion consumption. In response, a large number of luxury brands like Mulberry and Valentino have entered the market in the past year. The luxury goods market in China is expected to grow by about 20 per cent this year.

Dior showcased its latest haute couture collection in Dubai recently to a crowd of Mideast-based fashionistas, social media figures, celebrities, buyers, designers and editors. It was the first show in Dubai for the French fashion house under a large circus-style tent. The well-heeled Dubai crowd was wowed as models in sequined helmets presented the pieces inspired by the circus. Dior has a history with the big top, with the circus theme first appearing in a 1955 styled photo and reappearing under John Galliano’s creative direction.

The haute couture collection included details like a tattooed body suit that conjured up images of Victorian-era circus performers and a tulle jumpsuit of multi-colored streaks in satin bands and dramatically square shoulders. The presentation in Dubai, however, also included 15 entirely new creations unveiled especially for the show’s design conscious Arab Gulf-based audience. Dubai’s exuberant displays of luxury and the city’s surreal, futuristic-looking skyline were the ideal backdrop to the show.

Exclusive pieces at the invitation-only show, reflected in many ways Dubai’s own ambitions to become a global fashion and design hub. The emirate of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates has a reputation for glamour and over-the-top projects like manmade palm shaped islands, the world’s tallest tower and a seemingly endless pipeline of new five-star hotels and spas.

China Interdye and China Textile Printing will take place from April 10 to 12, 2019. With a total area of 40,000 sq mts, the two exhibitions have so far attracted more than 650 enterprises from 17 countries. The exhibits cover all kinds of advanced environment-friendly dyestuff, organic pigments, catalysts, intermediates, as well as environmental impact assessment equipment and digital textile printers in addition to printing and dyeing automation technologies and materials.

Exhibitors will mainly promote new environmentally friendly printing and dyeing products and application technologies. In addition, delegations of exhibitors from India, South Korea and Taiwan will join hands in a move to increase participation.

China Interdye is a gathering of the global dyeing and chemical industry. China Textile Printing aims at creating a one-stop shop for the procurement of textile, printing and dyeing products while, at the same time, serving as a wider platform for the development of the industry.

From January to November 2018, production of printed and dyed cloth in China was up 2.26 per cent year on year. Income of printing and dyeing enterprises was up 4.55 per cent year on year. Their total profit was up 13.06 per cent year on year.

Post Brexit, India will have to wait a while to sign free trade agreement with Britain. Britain has flagged some high-value trade disputes involving British companies in India as a warning sign on the road ahead. British companies have not found it entirely easy to operate in India. Difficulties remain despite the India getting 53 position in the ease of doing business rankings. Instead Britain is looking forward to concluding agreements that will probably be easier and smoother to manage, such as that with Australia or New Zealand. This is despite the fact that some of the largest number of skilled professionals working and living in Britain comes from India.

The lengthy FTA negotiations between India and the European Union are seen as a learning curve for future India-UK trade ties. With India, the Department of International Trade is looking first at how to address other barriers to bilateral trade that would help build toward a future trade relationship rather than going straight for an FTA. Negotiations between the EU and India on an FTA have not yet concluded.

The UK is due to leave the EU on March 29. It voted to leave the EU nearly three years ago.