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Total 39 US textile companies were certified by the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS) in 2019, bringing the total to 113 individual companies. The newly-certified companies include one knitter, Roshan Trading Inc, and four cotton gins: King-Mesa Gin, Mesa Farmers Cooperative Inc, West Gin, and Woolam Gin.
A total of 14 manufacturers were certified: Avocado Green Brands, BAC Distributing, Brentwood Home, Chevaldi, Diamond Wipes International, Fibertex Nonwovens, Fischer Manufacturing, New Fashion Products, Panditos, Quality Sleep Shop, Sleep Technologies, Procter and Gamble, Tour Image, and WPT Corporation.
Retailers to gain certification included A1 Home Collections, Cole and Cleo, Conscious Step, Everlane, Fair Seas Supply Company, Green Cotton Group USA, Helix Sleep, Hope & Henry, Louis Dreyfus Company Cotton, Noleo Care Company, Modn Made, Organics and More, Pem-America, Sweet Dreams, Standard Fiber, Revman International, Sally Fox, Simple Ecology, The Home Depot, The William Carter Co, and Warwick Fulfillment Solutions.
GOTS covers the processing, manufacturing, packaging, labeling, trading and distribution of all textiles made from at least 70 per cent certified organic natural fibers.
Products may only be sold with a GOTS label if the entire supply-chain is certified and the necessary scope and transaction certificates have been obtained to prove certification. An independent on-site inspection is carried out annually by GOTS-approved certifiers.
The Solapur Garment Manufacturers Association (SGMA) recently urged the Union government to frame a new textile policy that would build India as garment sourcing hub for the whole world. As per SGMA, the new textile policy should promote entrepreneurship in the garment manufacturing sector. It should provide new units with loans of up to Rs 2 crore with interest-free provision for the first three years and subsequent three years with a subsidised interest rate of 4 per cent per annum. This will make them more competitive.
SGMA also urged the government to employ unskilled labor in the industry. It should introduce an on-job training incentive scheme wherein an incentive of Rs 3,500 per labour per month is provided for a period of initial six months.
Further, a provision should be made for a single window clearance system for setting up garment/ textile units and a single nodal officer must make sure that all the licenses and permission are be given within 15 days from the date of application.
The association also urged the government to declare Solapur as the India’s Uniform Manufacturing Zone which would make it one of the world’s first cities to have unique uniform sourcing hub.
Some US brands and retailers had a tough 2019. Once a venerable American institution, Macy’s is now among the ranks of tired department stores that have struggled to differentiate their offerings and give shoppers a reason to trek to their sprawling, mall-based stores. Gap split itself into two publicly traded companies: Old Navy will be spun off as a standalone company, while Gap, Banana Republic and several smaller brands will compose another. The breakup is meant to allow Old Navy, the crown jewel, to flourish on its own. However, sales at Old Navy have slipped in recent quarters.
L Brands, which owns Victoria’s Secret, also had a dismal year, with shares dropping 28 per cent. The lingerie chain, which has long been known for its hyper-sexualized advertisements, has lost market share to online upstarts that promote body-positive photographs of real women. In an effort to remake its image, it discontinued its annual fashion show this year and hired its first transgender model. Even so, waning demand has translated into declining sales and big losses.
Amazon has been punished by investors to some extent because its significant investment in one-day shipping has eaten into profits. Nevertheless, the e-commerce giant still recorded a gain of 19 per cent.
The European textile and apparel industry is in a privileged position to deliver and prosper in the circular economy, says Euratex. Already Europe already boasts of a textile value chain capable of recycling fabrics, regenerating fibers and maximizing resources in production. Reducing waste, combined with an intelligent use of resources, has the potential to solve the gap resulting from natural resource scarcity and global growing population or consumption.
But while hundreds of textile businesses have successfully transitioned their business away from a linear take-make-dispose model, the potential is much greater. Investing in textile waste management to overcome technological challenges is another key consideration, as is a comprehensive approach to resource efficiency that incentivizes circular design. The high cost of fiber sorting and limits in applicable technologies for mechanical/chemical recycling are considered as an obstacle to scaling up. Private and public investment combined with appropriate regulatory policy and business will greatly help the transition from linear to circular economy.
Equally important is the role of the consumer, who should be protected from misleading claims. European and global consumers can ultimately reward the efforts made by business and policy makers by choosing better products and by making the circular economy really sustainable.
In 2019, retail businesses attempted to spice up their sales floors with resale opportunities, in-store dining and drinking experiences, a flood of trendy CBD products and customer-first services like customization, in-store pick-up and personal shopping.
By 2025 physical samples will be used less than virtual samples. So says retail data and analytics firm Edited. As consumer demand for sustainable practices grows, retailers are continuing to innovate to reduce their environmental footprint. The year 2020 should see strides towards digitalizing sampling processes before mass retailers eventually adopt the practice.
Despite originally being an economical way for brands to have a physical presence during the retail apocalypse of the 2010s, pop-up shops have become a permanent fixture in apparel retail. Here today, gone tomorrow, brands continue to rely on the temporary concept as a way to drum up social media buzz for special collections and collaborations. But as pop-ups become the norm, brands are introducing more theatrics to stand out. This year alone, fashion hosted its fair share of brand activations, temporary installments and in-store sensory experiences.
Tommy Hilfiger plans to shift its design to a 100 per cent digital process by 2022. The brand will implement 3D design technology throughout its global apparel design teams.
The United Kingdom’s fashion industry is not cutting waste fast enough. Although progress has been made on cutting water use and carbon emissions, this is not true of waste targets. There has been sluggish progress on supply chain waste, as the amount of textile waste sent to landfill has dropped by only four per cent since 2012. In fact, waste in this category has actually increased since 2015.
Among the reasons for the slow progress on waste are: population growth, rising consumption levels, lack of collection infrastructure and the length of time people hold on to clothes. UK consumers buy more clothes by volume than anywhere else in Europe. The rise of fast fashion means many items are only worn a handful of times before being discarded, often in landfill.
Getting people to change their behavior around fashion has been challenging. As well as the economic context and trends in fashion, the EU exit and increased sector scrutiny may all shape the future for UK fashion. In the meanwhile emissions reductions has been achieved by changing the proportion of fibers used in clothing, and increasing the use of sustainable forms of cotton. Cotton sourced from Better Cotton Initiative suppliers has been a large contributor to the improvement.
Employment in Turkey’s clothing industry increased 9.7 per cent from September 2018 to September 2019. Already one of the most prominent textile and clothing producers of the world, Turkey is now raising its sights for a higher rise in exports, setting its sights on the US market.
The clothing sector has strategic importance for the country’s economy with its production power, contribution to employment, and value-added exports. The country’s domestic clothing market size has risen 20 per cent from the previous year. The apparel sector contributes 10.7 per cent to Turkey’s overall exports and 13.1 per cent to industrial exports. The EU is the biggest market for Turkey’s ready-to-wear and apparel sector. This is followed by Germany, Spain, Britain, the Netherlands, France, Iraq, the US, Italy, Denmark and Israel. Other significant markets are Russia, one of Turkey’s largest trading partners, and China, the world’s largest ready-to-wear supplier.
The most exported product in the first half of 2018 was woven fabrics. Woven fabric exports increased by 8.3 per cent compared to the same period of 2017. The second most exported product was yarn, which constitutes 18.1 per cent of total textile exports from Turkey. Exports of the third important product group, knitted fabrics, increased 2.3 per cent. Turkey is one of the world's leading manufacturers of knitted fabrics. Fiber exports, the fourth most exported product group, increased by 16.9 per cent.
Recovery in crude oil prices is set to benefit synthetic yarn manufacturers in India because of their ability to pass on the increase to consumers, that is, fabric manufacturers. Since synthetic yarn is a derivative of crude oil, manufacturers have been able to raise their product prices. Synthetic yarn has become costlier by five per cent to seven per cent in the last two months along with a jump in cotton yarn prices. Changing consumer preferences, like the needs of sportswear firms, have resulted in an increasing demand for synthetic yarn in India. Looking at the vast potential, Indian synthetic yarn and fabric manufacturers have also started exploring overseas markets for exports.
Consumer preferences have changed over the last few years. Demand for synthetic yarn and fabric has increased as against 60:40 cotton-to-synthetic yarn consumption in India two years ago, the ratio has now changed to 55:45. This is going to continue further and catch up with the global standard of 40:60 of cotton-to-synthetic. Going ahead, demand for polyester fibers is expected to remain firm, led by healthy demand expected in the domestic apparel industry. India’s better demographics, expected increase in per capita income, increasing urbanisation and expanding organised market would be the key drivers for raising the domestic demand for apparels.
The world’s top hosiery exporting country is China. World exports of hosiery rose by 6.9 per cent in 2018 and, of this total, China alone accounted for a 44.5 per cent share. The international hosiery market is set for transformation as importers in the major markets, including the USA and the EU, shift their sourcing towards emerging low cost producing countries in Asia. China is facing increasing competition from fast-growing countries in Asia which can produce basic hosiery quickly and cheaply.
As a result, sourcing of such hosiery is set to shift away from China towards these countries. Asian countries that pose a significant threat include Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, and Vietnam. These countries are quickly adopting Industry 4.0 production methods, and these are helping them to improve productivity and manufacture goods in vast quantities. Hosiery exports from Pakistan reached a record high in 2018 while India shot up in the hosiery export rankings by three places compared with 2017 to become the 15th largest exporter in 2018. There was also a rise in exports from Vietnam in 2018.
Global imports and exports of hosiery rose in 2018 but remained below the peak achieved in 2014. EU imports of hosiery declined in value and in volume terms in 2018 but still reached their second-highest level on record. Imports of hosiery into the USA rose in volume terms to a record high and were also up in terms of value.
Exporting garments made of manmade fiber can help Bangladesh, say experts. Consumption of apparels made from artificial textile raw material is rising globally. As of now, 20 per cent of Bangladesh’s garment exports are made of manmade fiber. The sector needs foreign direct investment and some assistance to divert to manmade fiber-based garment production. The country has a very low capacity in this segment. Of the total garment items exported from Bangladesh last fiscal year, 74.14 per cent was made from cotton fiber, up from 68.67 per cent ten years ago. In Bangladesh, the use of cotton-based yarn and the garment products produced from it is rising. But exporters are receiving lower prices from the sales of cotton fiber-made garments.
Bangladesh’s export is over-concentrated on T-shirts, trousers, jackets, sweaters, and formal shirts and they together account for 73 per cent of the country’s garment exports. Moreover, Bangladesh is reliant too much on three markets: the European Union, the US and Canada and market diversification is taking place slowly. Last fiscal year, 83 per cent of Bangladesh’s garment exports went to the three markets. The garment sector’s contribution to the GDP is only 11 per cent, clearly indicating very little value addition. Reasons behind the garment sector’s lower growth include economic recession around the world and pressure from the nation’s currency.
