FW
Global women’s wear market has shown good growth rate. The market is bifurcated into five categories: clothing, footwear, sportswear, accessories and others. Brand loyalty and brand recognition are keys for successful business. Europe represents the largest market for women’s wear, followed by North America. But Asia Pacific is expected to be the fastest growing market for women’s wear. Increasing promotional activity, rising disposable income, increasing consumer confidence and increasing eagerness to keep up with the latest fashion trends are some of the major driving forces for the women’s wear market. Women’s footwear particularly is showing good growth. Rubber owing to its high endurance and versatility remains a preferred material for women’s footwear over other material types such as leather, velvet, plastic, and textiles. Plastic is positioned as the second most favored base material for women’s footwear. Customization is trending in the women’s footwear landscape. Therapeutic women’s footwear holds a promising outlook. Sports shoes dominate women’s footwear. Sneakers have huge sales potential in the casual shoes category.
There are various channels where women’s wear can be purchased. These include department stores, boutiques, retailers, specialty stores and online. However, it is difficult for a company to establish itself in the women’s wear segment due to fast changing styles.
Super will be held in Italy from September 19 to 22, 2019 during Milan Fashion Week and will open one day earlier than have prior editions. The decision to bring forward the opening date was made after a careful analysis of foreign buyer flows and in the hope of gaining a very busy day.
This is a trade show mainly of the accessory and women’s prêt-à-porter producers. The new format caters to the needs of more sophisticated international buyers. The show continues to bet strongly on scouting new and interesting brands while constantly discovering new international creative hubs. A vast selection of designers both Italian and international will be part of this edition and Italian designer Vivetta Ponti will present her new footwear line and will be the subject of a special installation in the Visconti Pavilion and will also show on the runway during Milan Fashion Week. A special area will show a series of up-and-coming talents from all over the world including Alighieri (UK), Gogo Philip Studio (Italy), Helena Bajaj Larsen (France), Liudmila Footwear (Kuwait), Roma Narsinghani (India) and Sabry Marouf (UK). Super will also present a selection of brands from Armenia. They are Damink, Demiurge, Kivera Naynomis, Loom Weaving, Made, Nikolyan, Ruzane, Soncess and Teress. Some of them are making their international debuts.
With the ongoing tariff war between the US and China, Southeast Asian countries are intensifying their efforts to attract companies planning to move production bases outside China. To attract investment, they are offering tax incentives and other benefits.
Thailand for example is offering preferential measures for companies that relocate factories and other facilities from China. A corporate tax deduction of up to 50 per cent is one of the main pillars of the package. The Philippines is attracting more export-oriented manufacturing foreign direct investments by relaxing rules. Cambodia, with its cheap labor, is increasing its presence as an alternative production base to China for apparel and other products. As one of the least developed countries, Cambodia has an advantage of low tariffs when exporting to the United States and Japan. In Myanmar, more companies that operate in China have been visiting a special economic zone supported by Japan. Myanmar wants to further relax regulations to attract companies that can become partners in its economic development. Moves toward transferring production from China to Southeast Asia are gaining momentum. Southeast Asian nations hope that more production bases will mean more exports to developed countries, which will make up for sluggish exports to China.
Shima Seiki’s Cutting Solutions is a fully integrated cutting system that offers smooth workflow from design and programming to fabric spreading, labeling, cutting and pickup of cut parts. The company’s CAD/CAM line-up consists of the SDS-ONE APEX4 design system, the P-SPR2K fabric spreading machine with labeling option, the P-CAM161 multiply computerised cutting machine, and the pickup table with pickup projector.
The P-CAM161 offers high-quality, efficiency and productivity with good cost-performance. It is designed to handle precision cutting of a variety of fabrics and materials for flexible high-volume production. The pickup table features a pickup projector that projects images of cut parts onto the fabric to increase efficiency and prevent human error in pickup and sorting. The P-CAM160 is a single-ply computerised cutting machine. The P-SPR2K computerised spreading machine provides smooth spreading and stacking of knits and other fabrics with stretch characteristics. The labeling option is available for affixing labels to each part for smooth pickup. SDS-ONE APEX4 is a brand-new design system. Its fabric simulation capability in circular knitting, flat knitting, weaving, pile weaving and printing is designed to reduce sampling time, cost and material. The new PGM software features improved interface and up to a 40 per cent increase in productivity compared to the previous APEX3 system.
Performance Days will be held in Germany, November 13 to 14, 2019. The trade fair for functional fabrics for sports and work clothing will present sustainable materials. Only sustainable materials will be presented in the curated Performance Forum. All aspects of sustainability will be explored such as recycled fibers, natural fibers from renewable resources, recycling qualities, bio-degradables or compostables, microplastics, product life cycles, water conservation, energy savings, CO2 emissions and chemicals. The current state of the art will be highlighted in all these topics as they pertain to the textile industry.
On the assumption that sustainability should be seen in all stages of the textile production process, and that sustainability is much more than simply using recycled fibers and fabrics, Performance Days will provide the impulse in various directions for sustainability research and development. The trade fair itself will be generally more sustainable. A comprehensive overall concept is designed to avoid unnecessary waste, for example, generated from disposable products. In the past the fair has stimulated exhibitors to create new developments. It now looks forward to guiding fabric manufacturers in the right direction and inspiring yet more innovation. And the show has the leverage to make a difference in the entire value chain.
The attack on a major hub of Saudi Arabia’s oil production has shaken up the fashion industry. The first impact be on the fashion industry as it increases logistics costs. Since fashion is a completely globalized sector, both in supply as in distribution, higher gas prices will make transport more expensive. Fearful of any impact on their margins, fashion giants are scared of a rise in logistics prices in the short term. In the long term, the fear is that it might eventually impact fashion’s main raw material, polyester.
Polyester is the star fiber of the fashion industry. Since the ’70s, its production and consumption have kept growing. Between 2000 and 2017, its production tripled. Polyester demand in the fashion industry skyrocketed in 2011 because of the escalation of cotton prices. However, this market didn’t seem to be touching the ceiling. Until now. Synthetic fibers are expected to grow an average five per cent a year until 2022. Polyester has brought about significant changes in how apparel products are made, priced, and distributed. China accounts for 69 per cent of all polyester fiber production globally, and if India and Southeast Asia are added to the equation, these three regions represent 86 per cent of global polyester production.
Two German manufacturers Märkische Faser and Kelheim Fibers are offering spun dyed fibers in polyester and viscose. Textiles made from a blend of spun dyed polyester and viscose fibers combine the advantages of both fibers. They are easy-care and dimensionally stable yet feel pleasantly soft on the skin and offer high wearer comfort. They are ideally suited for all applications that need large quantities of fabric of a precisely defined shade and that must deliver comfort and wear qualities as for example professional clothing or uniforms, but also furnishing or upholstery fabrics.
Spun dyed fibers have always been an important part of the range of products both of Märkische Faser and of Kelheim. Here, color pigments are incorporated in the spinning mass before the spinning process and are therefore homogenously distributed in the whole fiber. These fibers – and the final product – offer a particularly high color and light fastness. The colors do not bleed during washing and they keep their brilliance even after many washing cycles. In contrast to a conventional dyeing process, the colors can be reproduced exactly. Besides the usually lower production costs and a shorter throughput time, this is one of the main advantages for the further processing chain.
Jeans with Lycra dualFX technology deliver a comfortable, lasting fit for all body types regardless of their shape or size. This technology combines two Lycra brand stretch fibers to add extra flexibility and bounce back recovery to denim. This means jeans hold their shape all day, every day resisting bag and sag while delivering exceptional comfort and fit.
Lycra has been successfully growing its branded differentiated fiber business for 60 years but has had particular success in the last five years in shifting from a mix of commodity and differentiated fiber business to nearly all differentiated or specialty fibers. Lycra is at the forefront of stretch denim and the athleisure trend that followed getting its name known through the intimate apparel and swimwear sectors. Product innovation, long at the core of the company and what set the Lycra brand apart from other spandex and elastane companies, is even more of a focus now. The company is even more committed to bringing out category-changing products that create premiums for its customers. One of the newest innovations is Lycra Fitsense, which allows Lycra fiber technology to be screen-printed onto a fabric or garment for targeted support. Lycra Fitsense allows designers to create lighter weight, breathable, cooler fabrics that offer targeted compression and support.
LSJH has developed technology for sorting textile waste. This is an infrared-based technology that promises to give textile recycling a giant leap forward by replacing manual sorting with an automated method.
LSJH, based in Finland, is a recycling firm and is in the pilot phase of a processing plant that aims to accelerate the textile circular economy. The goal is to create a facility that will be able to use the new infrared sensor to process all discarded textiles from Finland as well as textile waste from abroad. The recycling firm will deploy the new technology to sort waste textiles starting this autumn. Different fibers will be used for different products, with better quality material reserved for thread that could be used to manufacture new clothing.
So far, waste textiles have been manually sorted in Finland as well as in other parts of Europe. This means that workers have checked labels to identify different kinds of materials. However, labels can be inaccurate or may even be missing. This becomes problematic given that industries using recycled fibers to manufacture new products need to be certain of the raw material they are using. The optical recognition technology currently under development will improve the reliability of identification of fibers in fabrics and will help ensure better quality textile products.
