FW
Now, for its tenth edition, New York-based denim-fabric fair BPD Expo is again being a maverick in the field by being the only fashion-driven trade show in the area that has not canceled its physical edition this season. In fact, BPD Expo is currently running and has been accepting visitors since last week–but it has been majorly modified to make shopping the show as safe and comfortable as possible in these times of COVID-19.
The current edition is being held at Blue Print Denim (BPD) Washhouse across the Hudson River in Jersey City, New Jersey. Owned by show producer Bill Curtin, the facility is the only full service wet and dry denim processing plant on the East Coast. Curtin and his team have set up a special totally separate enclosed viewing area with fresh air at the site featuring unmanned booths and racks of denim samples for fall 2021 from six mills BPD Washhouse represents in the States from Vietnam, China, Indonesia, Pakistan, Taiwan and Mexico. Curtin assures that the area will be disinfected daily.
A group of workers’ rights organizations have called on fashion brands and retailers to make a Supply-chain Relief Contribution (SRC), through which two per cent of their total sourcing budget from the preceding 12 months would be made available to garment workers struggling amidst the pandemic.
Led by the Asia Wage Floor Alliance (AWFA), Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing (WIEGO) and member organizations HomeNet South Asia (HNSA) and HomeNet South East Asia (HNSEA), the workers’ rights groups’ call to arms has been made with the ambition of supporting not only contracted factory staff but also the hundreds of thousands of people worldwide which are time-rated, piece-rated, subcontracted and home workers, and so have fallen out of focus.
With millions of workers across major production hubs – including Bangladesh, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and India – fighting for survival amidst the uncertainty of the coronavirus crisis, the coalition of organizations hopes fashion’s leaders can throw down the gauntlet and support those in their supply chains. Through the SRC mechanism, companies of all sizes which source from the aforementioned nations would apportion some of their wealth – dependent on the scale at which they’ve bought over the past year – to keep supplier factories and their workforces afloat.
OTEXA reveals India’s apparel shipments to the US declined by 70.17 per cent in volume and 71.44 per cent in value in May’20. This is the biggest decline in the list of exports, clothing to the USA. The value of US imports of clothing items from India decreased by 83.74 per cent in May 20 as the country imported 19.63 million SME garments worth $62.98 million. The year-on-year decline was recorded at 82.45 per cent.
The value of India’s clothing shipments to the US from January-May 20 declined by 27.08 per cent to $1,424.63 million compared to $1,953.74 million for the same duration of the previous year. Indian unit prices for shipping to the US also dropped by 1.74 per cent to $3.50 from $3.56 in 2019.
India’s shipment of apparel from the USA too fell due to the lockdown in April and May. Indian factories began operation from the first week of June and will be reflected in the following months.
Kids wear retailer Children’s Place plans to close 300 of its shops in malls by the end of 2021. The retailer’s mall-based portfolio will account for less than 25 per cent of its total revenue. By the end of second quarter of this year, the company plans to close 100 outlets followed by another 100 stores in 2021. About half of the first set of closures will be affected in the next two months with most of these stores likely to be liquidated soon.
These closures are a result of the company’s continuous decline in sales. Sale in the first quarter declined 38 per cent. It swung from $4.5 million in net profits a year earlier to a $114.8 million loss. That was a 990-point base downswing to 26.8 per cent of net sales, largely due to higher e-commerce fulfillment costs, along with closed-store fixed expenses.
Praising the historic EU agreement to create a 750-billion-euro coronavirus recover fund, Pitti Uomo has unveiled plans for the Dolce & Gabbana show in September. The Dolce & Gabbana show will be held from September 2-4 in Florence. The show will present the Dolce & Gabbana Alta Sartoria luxury menswear collection inside the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence’s medieval city hall. This will be followed by a live runway show of women’s Alta Moda, or haute couture in Villa Bardini, a 17th-century abode with a classical Tuscan garden, including artificial grottoes, an orangery, marble statues and fountains, and a famously romantic roof terrace with magnificent views of Florence.
The design duo will also stage a high jewelry presentation, with a meal inside the cloisters of the Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria della Novella and a chance for their well-heeled clients to participate in the wine harvest at the noted Florentine vineyard of Cantieri Antinori.
Pitti plans to return in January 2021 with reduced audience. The event will be slightly different in nature given the financial crisis of department stores in America. The salon typically attracts over 1,200 brands to each edition. However, for its next edition it targets a more realistic goal of between 700 and 800 brands.
Italian fashion group OTB has appointed Gianfranco Gianangeli new chief executive of Maison Margiela brand. Gianangeli, who has previously served as global retail director at Givenchy, associate international director at Prada and held several merchandising positions at Bottega Veneta, succeeds Riccardo Bellini who left to join the Richemont-owned Chloé. He will report to Ubaldo Minelli, chief executive of Maison Margiela owner OTB.
Paris-based label Maision Margiela has been part of the OTB portfolio since 2002, alongside brands like Diesel, Viktor&Rolf, Marni and Paula Cademartori. Former Dior designer John Galliano has been the brand's creative director since 2014.
OTB, an acronym which stands for Only The Brave, said Maison Margiela's sales last year grew 36 per cent year-on-year to €200.
Worker Rights Consortium (WRC) has decided to remove Gap Inc from its COVID-19 tracker of companies that failed to pay their manufacturers for canceled orders that were completed or were in production. This development comes after Gap Inc committed to pay suppliers in full for orders it has canceled due to the pandemic that was already completed or in production. The company has also assured vendors to compensate in full for finished goods or goods in production that were canceled or subjected to pack and hold. It is working towards providing low-cost financing to its vendors by working with their banking partners to increase the number of funds available within the program.
A WRC spokesperson hailed Gap’ as being creditworthy as the corporation was put through severe challenges during the crisis even more so than those confronting some of its competitors and given the large volume of orders at stake. WRC had previously criticized Gap for canceling orders and had demanded ‘sizable discounts’ to accept some orders and extend payment terms without providing adequate low-cost financing.
The Bangladesh government gave yet another stimulus package worth Tk 3,000 crore for the export-oriented industries to help them provide wages and salaries to their workers for July. This is the third stimulus package for the export-oriented industries, which are now actively running their units, since March.
The development comes after the Bangladesh Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA) and the Bangladesh Knitwear Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BKMEA), whose members generate most of the export receipts, jointly wrote to Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal on June 22 seeking continuation of low-cost loans for three more months to September. Accordingly, the central bank yesterday sent a letter to 47 banks to release the fund from the stimulus package for the large borrowers in the industrial and service sectors. The package's allocation was raised to Tk 33,000 crore from Tk 30,000 crore for this end.
According to this package, borrowers will have to pay 4.50 per cent interest rate to avail the fund while banks will get 9 per cent interest as the government will give the rest as subsidy. Banks will be permitted to take up 50 per cent fund from the central bank's refinance scheme to provide the credit to the export-oriented industries smoothly. Borrowers will have to pay the loans within two years including a grace period of six months.
Japanese apparel maker Matsuoka Corp plans to produce protective clothing by investing $28 million in its Vietnam manufacturing unit Anbam Matsuoka Garment Co. This move came after the Japanese government pledged to assist the apparel maker to diversify its supply chains and lessen its dependence on China amid the Coronavirus crisis.
Matsuoka is one of 30 firms supported by the Japanese government to move factories out of China and set them up in Southeast Asian markets like Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand and Laos. According to an official list from Japan External Trade Organization (Jetro), 15 out of 30 Japanese firms including Matsuoka Corp. have registered to move to Vietnam.
Matsuoka established its Annam Matsuoka Garment Co in the central province of Nghe last November as part of an ongoing campaign to produce apparel products mainly in Southeast Asian countries.
Good On You, a consumer-facing platform that assesses brands based on their impact on people, planet and animals, has granted 4 out of 5 overall ratings to denim brand Kings of Indigo. The brand was also informed about its potential areas for future development. It has already started putting in efforts to improve in these categories. The company plans to adjust workers’ wages by 2021 to account for the cost of education and savings. It also aims to obtain a 2020 sustainability report that will continue research on living wages, request detailed opening costing from suppliers and participate in the Fair Wear living wage incubator 2.0 in order to achieve its goal.
Kings of Indigo has been certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), OEKO-TEX, OCS100 and GOTS. Its latest sustainability report also highlights its initiatives to reduce energy consumption. Out of the 82 jeans styles in the company's S/S ’20 collection, half are measured to have very low impact on the environment.
