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Informa Markets Fashion has cancelled its flagship New York-based fashion trade show, Coterie which includes Fame, Moda, Sole Commerce and the previously rescheduled Project and Children’s Club, which was scheduled to take place from September 22 to 24 at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center.
The Coterie team will instead focus on providing an opportunity for business continuity via its new digital trade event, which will begin on September 1.
The Coterie New York marketplace draws a large audience of international and domestic brands, retailers and key industry executives. Given continued uncertainty around international travel and border restrictions, as well as the importance of health and safety, Coterie has decided to shift its focus this fall toward its digital trade event in partnership with NuOrder.
As reported last month, the partnership is part of a longer-term plan to support a synergistic physical and digital future for the fashion wholesale industry. This season’s digital trade event, running from Sept. 1 to Nov. 1, is an opportunity for continued commerce for the New York marketplace despite challenges around the physical event this year.
UK apparel brand Boohoo has been accused of keeping several of its factories across London open even during the lockdown phase – and most of them to sustain online orders for fashion label Boohoo. Labour Behind The Label, a garment worker’s rights group, has accused Boohoo factories of putting the lives of several garment workers at risk. The group claimed that these factories asked employees to come to work even when some of them were sick.
Also, workers alleged the factories flouted social distancing rules besides failing to provide basic needs like masks and sanitizers to the workers. Those who are wishing to isolate themselves are also being denied wages. Add to it, there are also complaints of many factories running in old dilapidated buildings – a big question mark on their compliance standards.
However, Boohoo has refuted these allegations saying that it has made available sufficient quantity of PPE, masks and sanitizers and that too at free of cost. It also said that it has always followed Government’s guidelines and ensured the safety of all its workers.
Vietnam’s General Statistics Office says, the total value of Vietnam's textile and garment exports in the first half of this year declined 15.5 per cent year-on-year to nearly $12.8 billion. The country exported majority of its products to the United States, the European Union, Japan, South Korea and China. In June alone, its textile and garment exports tumbled by 23.6 per cent on-year to $2.2 billion, reported Xinhua.
The Vietnam Textile and Apparel Association blamed complex developments of the COVID-19 pandemic for the reductions in new orders, forecasting that export revenue this year would fall significantly amid decreasing global demand. The country had recorded an export turnover of roughly $32.6 billion in 2019, up 6.9 per cent from 2018, according to the statistics office.
A report by Business Turkmenistan states, the country presently exports more than 70 per cent of its textile products to foreign markets. The Ministry of Textile Industry of Turkmenistan operates more than 70 enterprises, including for the production of various types of cotton and mixed yarns, fabrics, jeans, knitted fabrics, and finished products from these fabrics.
The companies have installed equipment from companies of Japan, Italy, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. The operation of several large textile industries within the framework of the "raw materials - finished products" principle has shown that this method is more effective, the report said.
The Ashgabat Textile Complex (ADT), which is one of largest enterprises in the Central Asian region of its kind, fully supplies the country's domestic markets, producing a variety of export-oriented products. The distinguishing feature of the products manufactured by enterprise is that no chemical additives are used in the dye or softening agent. The complex exports its products with the trademarks ADT, Goza and Vada. At the beginning of the year, the tailors also started decorating their products with the symbol ‘Turkmenistan – Home of Neutrality.’
Against the growing anti-China sentiment, global sportswear makers, who source a large chunk of their raw materials from the country are planning to shift sourcing and manufacturing to India and Southeast Asia. Global retailers and brands are ready to hedge sourcing to different markets other than China for the goods they sell in India. Under Armour whose merchandise suppliers are based around the world does not foresee any significant impact on its India business as a result of any duties or curbs that the government may introduce.
However, manufacturing in India may push up costs for these sportswear companies. Domestic manufacturers have not yet developed scale, as a result of which brands will find it dearer in the beginning to move sourcing and production of finished goods to India. According to the managing director of a home-grown footwear manufacturing company, China has scale and makes for the world, while India only makes for domestic consumption. He hopes India to achieve similar scale over time. It will take brands at least two years to move their production out of China.
A senior executive of a footwear retail chain says, despite the government taking efforts to ramp up duty on goods coming in from China, a large part of the hundreds a of containers that arrive on Indian shores every day are under-invoiced. This is counterproductive for domestic manufacturers.
Japan-based flat knitting solutions provider Shima Seiki, has released a new design software, and two other web services to enhance its user experience. Intended to aid in digital transformation of fashion industry post-COVID-19, these services are best adapted for new work styles and methods including teleworking and telecommuting.
At the same time, they are geared toward streamlining and improving efficiency to achieve sustainability through reduced waste. The latest service added by to Shima Seiki- the SDS-onE Apex Fiz is a subscription-based design software that can be installed on customers’ individual computers. The software enhances the functions of SDS-onE Apex series by enabling it to adapt to different work styles and environments. The software is furthermore available in five different flavors that can be selected according to the customer's needs, from Fiz Design Pro to Fiz Design Jr.
Yarnbank, is the world’s first online web service for searching and viewing latest yarns, developed with cooperation from yarn companies from around the world. Knit manufacturers and apparel companies can be assured that the simulations created using yarnbank are not merely realistic images but accurate representations using yarn that can actually be purchased and used in production. Yarnbank also serves as a new promotional platform for yarn companies with the opportunity to present their yarns directly to their customers.
The SHIMAnAVI e-learning system allows Apex series users to experience online training when and where it is convenient, and at their own pace, supporting new work styles and environments such as teleworking and telecommuting. Several courses are available in different languages to suit the needs of individual customers as well.
Coats, the world’s leading industrial thread company, has launched a unique app known as Coats Synthesizer. The app features a yarn blend calculator which accurately predicts, within seconds, fabric properties for end-use in the personal protection sector.
The tool enables Coats to support its customers' tailored needs while also saving on the resource of multiple sampling processes. It is a bespoke tool that blends yarns virtually using algorithms. The sophisticated blend predictor technology provides information on essential fabric properties such as burn protection, abrasion resistance and ATPV (arc thermal protective value). It also allows yarn costs to be optimized in real time. The app will enable Coats to collaborate with its customers on the development of new and innovative blends together. Following the initial blend prediction and sampling done digitally, it is just fine tuning that is required at the physical development stage. This significantly increases the speed of delivery of products that meet customer needs without extensive trials or sampling.
Coats Synthesizer also provides a series of advanced solutions with added quality and value for protective wear. These include the Coats FlamePro™ product range of flame-resistant, electric arc and cut-resistant yarns which deliver optimum heat, fire and smelting hazard protection for use in the personal protection, military and industrial sectors.
International Apparel Federation (IAF) in collaboration with Pakistan Readymade Garments Manufacturers and Exporters Association (PRGMEA), Foursocure and Sourcing Journal will hold a one month long 'Digital Global Apparel Sourcing Expo' in the country from July 15. The expo will be visited by all private label and retail brand buyers, large brand buyers and sourcing managers, brand owners and start up labels, designers, product manager and agent buying houses.
Some of the top visiting counties to the expo will include the US, UK, Germany, Australia, France, Denmark, Canada, Netherlands and Pakistan. Around 15,000 buyers will attend the expo which will provide order volume of 20 million pieces. Holding the digital version of the show will enable the International Apparel Federation to minimize the problems confronted by the business community.
The Indian yarn industry is currently grappling the problem of 4Cs that include China, COVID-19, Consumption and Collection.
The clash at the borders has the entire nation calling for boycotting Chinese goods and cancelling import contracts with Chinese businesses. However, the government is unlikely to take any step against trade with China as India has a largest trade deficit with China. The trade deficit between the countries in 2018/19 was $53.5 billiion.
But the government’s move o ban 59 Chinese apps has definitely, albeit temporarily, soured the sentiments regarding shipping yarns to China at this juncture. Suppliers are thinking twice about risking their shipment. . The fear psychosis is preventing any lift off in consumption in the country. Until people freely go for buying new clothes, the demand for yarns is unlikely to pick up. Brands also have large unsold inventories to clear. Hence, they are not likely to order for more yarns
Yarn prices haven’t changed much over the last fortnight. In some verticals, they have in fact eased a bit. Higher prices are not able to find any support. Low production capacity utilization at spinning mills is helping prices stay afloat. Factories are not running at full capacities and and LCs are delayed too. European buyers have booked decent quantities and so has Egypt.
Extinction Rebellion (XR) activists plan to launch #PayUp campaign in London this week to urge fast fashion brands to financially support suppliers overseas throughout the pandemic. The protests orchestrated by XR’s Fashion Action and Textiles Rebellion arms will target brands accused of either failing to pay for orders which were completed or in production when lockdown fore ced non-essential retailers to close, cancelling orders at short-notice in breach of contract terms, or pushing for significant discounts from suppliers.
Among this cohort are the likes of Arcadia Group, owner of Topshop and Miss Selfridge; Urban Outfitters Group, which also owns Free People and Anthropologie; Primark, GAP and Levi Strauss.
During the protests, attendees will wave banners and flags, erect signs and offer to repair damaged clothing. Speeches and poetry performances will also take place. According to non-profit Support Garment Workers, which is co-orchestrating the #PayUp campaign, $3billion (£2.4billion) worth of completed and in-process orders for garments, footwear and accessories have been cancelled or put on hold as a result of Covid-19 in Bangladesh alone. This trend has put two million jobs at risk, the organization estimates.
Since the #PayUp campaign first launched, swathes of brands have publicly vowed to honor all completed and in-process orders and to work with suppliers to negotiate upcoming orders. Among them are ASOS, Next, Zara’s parent firm Inditex and VF Corporation, owner of Timberland, Vans and The North Face.
Aside from XR and Support Garment Workers, #PayUp is being supported by Remake, the Clean Clothes Campaign, Oxfam Australia, Traidcraft Exchange, Labour Behind the Label, the International Labour Rights Forum and United Students Against Sweatshops. Petitions associated with the campaign have collectively garnered more than 210,000 signatures.
