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Losses have widened for Benetton following a restructure in 2015, where it decided to refocus on United Colors of Benetton and its sister company Sisley. In 2016, turnover was down 8.5 per cent on the previous year. The Italian company held an event at the end of September, designed to immerse visitors in a story of color as told by garments. The aim was to create an experience that would stick in people's minds rather than put on a more ephemeral six-minute fashion show.
The installations comprised everything from furniture to prints, photography to live music and were grouped into eight color blocks from black through green. A diverse range of models were positioned around each station, kitted out in block colored outfits from the store's latest collection. The models were street-cast to ensure diversity and authenticity.
Benetton has always taken a slightly more creative and innovative approach. The first thing that springs to mind with talking about Benetton is color in all its expressions – from sparkling knits to well-known campaigns promoting multiculturalism. This new initiative is not only about fashion but an outward expression of everything the brand is about and brought to life creatively.
Basic infrastructure support to improve predictability of business trends; efficient functioning of Chittagong port and national airports; stable power tariff to enable uninterrupted growth in exports; stability in pricing of electricity and gas are what Bangladesh’s garment manufacturers are waiting for. They feel this will help them in a big way to set up long term plans and goals for their businesses. Incentives to the primary textile sector are expected to help increase raw material supply to the garment sector and result in an overall boost.
The garment sector in Bangladesh accounts for nearly 82 per cent of export receipts. The primary textile sector provides 85 per cent of the raw materials needed by the knitwear sector but just 40 per cent of those needed by the woven sector. Bangladesh garment makers have begun targeting emerging export destinations like India, China, and the Latin American countries that import garments worth billions of dollars annually.
The preferred choice for garment retailers and brands is still Bangladesh. The speedy recovery of global markets provides an opportunity on the export front. Bangladesh is the world’s second largest readymade garment exporter with advantages like a low labor cost, favorable business climate, and a well-established transport facility.
Russia and Uzbekistan intend to create a “green corridor” for supply of textile products. The two aim to further expand cooperation in textile industry which is a strategic centerpiece of the Uzbek economy due to the fact that Uzbekistan is the world’s sixth-largest cotton-growing country producing about 1.1 million tons of cotton fiber annually. Such a proposal was put forward during negotiations with the Russian delegation led by the Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Manturov in a narrow format says Uzbek Foreign Trade Minister Eler Ganiev.
Ganiev said, the potential is large. They are talking about production cooperation, the use of Uzbek yarn for production at Russian enterprises, the supply of finished textile products, knitted fabrics as well as cotton fabrics. They expect that by next year, the volume of trade in textile products could reach about $700 million. Meanwhile, Uzbekistan registered significant growth of almost 34 per cent in supplies of rolled ferrous metals and products made of ferrous metals from Russia.
All this creates opportunities for expansion and increase in production volumes both in Russia and in Uzbekistan, according to the Foreign Trade Minister. There are 961 enterprises in Uzbekistan with participation of Russian capital and 569 enterprises created with participation of investors from Uzbekistan in Russia. By the end of the year the republic intends to reach the $5 billion trade turnover level with Russia. Moreover, this year Russia has come out on top among Uzbekistan’s foreign trade partners. The production cooperation can make the most serious contribution to the development of bilateral trade relations.
Santoni focuses on the production of circular knitting machines by combining the advantage of Europe and China. Its products include seamless machines, large diameter circular machines and socks machines. Different types of Santoni machines are present in all major knitting mills within India among which the single jersey open width machine is currently one of the most popular models.
Customers have the advantage of finding the best solution for their budgets and their technical requirements. As a global leading textile machinery supplier, Santoni believes service support is the key to success for all machinery manufacturing companies. The company has established a direct service station in India. Santoni offers quick response solutions for any request from its customers covering technical support, machine maintenance and spare parts supply.
Santoni is capable of supplying the most amazing range of ultrafine gauge machines. The company offers up to 80 gauge in single jersey (thanks to its patented sinkerless technique) and up to 50 gauge. Thanks to its patented systems with oblique bars, fabric is rolled with the most even tension. The motorized fabric slitting system cuts the fabric very precisely avoiding any pressure and distortion of the fabric in the slit area.
Japanese computerised flat knitting machine manufacturer Shima Seiki is exhibiting its latest innovations at an exhibition in Turkey from October 5 to 7. At the show, the machinery manufacturer is presenting its MACH2XS and SWG Wholegarment series, computerized flat knitting machines SRY and SVR, the P-CAM computerised cutting machine and the SDS-One Apex3 3D apparel design system.
Additionally, the company is showcasing its SIP digital textile inkjet printing machine that opens up a whole new world of on-demand fashion through direct-to-garment production, promoting customization and sustainability. Shima Seiki is the leader in Wholegarment knitting technology with 30 years of on-going research. It has more than 2,000 patents to its name so far. Shima Seiki’s computerized knitting machines have become the global standard.
The company, founded in 1962, is known for the fully automated glove knitting machine and the fully automated seamless glove knitting machine. The seamless glove became the inspiration for the eventual development of the seam-free Wholegarment knitting technology for which the company is now best known. Wholegarment knitting is capable of producing knitted items in their entirety on the machine, and allows complex 3D forms for fitting the human body or even car seats without the need for sewing.
UBM is making big changes to its New York City trade show lineup for 2018. The fashion trade show company is launching in June a pre-collections show with Coterie and its first dual-gender fashion trade show with Project in July. These changes are intended to create new and more efficient business opportunities for both brands and retailers.
UBM is making these changes in partnership with Accessories Council and follows a series of consultations with customers and industry influencers. With the new changes, the pre-collections show with Coterie, Fame, Moda, AccessoriesTheShow and Pooltradeshow will be held at the Jacob Javits Center in New York City from June 10 through 12 and the dual-gender show will be held with Project Womens, Fame, Moda, AccessoriesTheShow, Project, MRket and Children’s Club from July 22 through 24.
The women’s wear show will continue to be held in February and September, and the January 2018 men’s and women’s market weeks will continue to run separately, with women’s running from January 7 through 9 and men’s from January 21 through 23.
UBM is the global leader in fashion trade shows and has been seeing firsthand the dramatic changes in the retail landscape, from the growth of e-commerce and fast fashion and changes in consumer buying patterns to the importance of delivering lifestyles and experiences.
AEPC wants embedded taxes to be refunded through the drawback route before the onset of the peak festival season. Embedded taxes include the levies on cotton, electricity, input tax credit restrictions for man-made fibers used in textiles and purchases made from unregistered dealers.
Exporters also want the freedom to make payments of the necessary duties and taxes through scrip transactions as was permitted prior to the GST regime. Since the Middle East, South Asia and Africa have emerged as significant markets for Indian readymade garments and since a lot of orders were already booked before the introduction of GST, its felt the curtailment in duty drawback will adversely affect exports.
Apparel exporters have already been hit hard by an appreciating rupee and the non-refund of embedded taxes has put tremendous pressure on their working capital. AEPC provides assistance to Indian exporters as well as importers/ international buyers who choose India as their preferred sourcing destination for garments. It trains the workforce and supplies a steady stream of manpower to the industry, identifies the best countries to source machinery and other infrastructure from and brokers deals for its members and helps exporters showcase their best at fairs at home and the world over.
ITMA will be held in Spain, June 20 to 26, 2019. This is the world’s largest textile and garment technology exhibition. It helps garment manufacturers exploit technologies that optimise the manufacturing process for productivity gains. ITMA 2019 is expected to feature a wide array of innovative solutions.
The latest exhibition will showcase an integrated textile and garment manufacturing value chain. In addition to machinery, exhibits will also include yarns, fibers and fabrics, and solutions for technical textiles and nonwovens, and garment making.
Besides a big display of technologies, fibers, yarns and fabrics, ITMA 2019 will be complemented by conferences and meetings that will add value to the visits of garment technology buyers as well as brands and retailers. ITMA will be a useful focal point for discussions on the entire manufacturing value chain so that concerns can be addressed in an integrated and meaningful way.
The exhibition is spotlighting smart garment technologies as robots and artificial intelligence are set to transform the industry. Automation, especially in an integrated textile and garment manufacturing chain, will help address the fashion and clothing industry’s current concerns of short production cycles and sustainable business practices. Sewbots considered a major breakthrough in garment automation will be on display. Manufacturers fast enough to ride the digital wave will find new opportunities and gain an edge over their competitors.
Ellie Kai is a Chinese made-to-measure company. The first challenge for Ellie Kai when it opened in 2011 was to convince the supply chain in Hong Kong and China that small minimums on raw materials and finished goods and a much faster turn time on production were needed.
The consumer was already there. The model was to cut-and-sew on demand to scale. Ellie started doing 50 garments a week and has scaled up to 1,400 garments a week within a few years. Ellie Kai can go from made-to-order direct to consumer in three weeks.
The actual production time cycle is about ten days and the company is able to have the order on a plane to the customer usually within 24 hours after it’s off the production line. The goal is to get the full cycle under two weeks. It took close to two years to find supply chain partners in China to be able to meet the quick response requirements and production standards the brand needed. Ellie Kai is sold through sales consultants who run social shopping trunk shows and then work directly with clients to select and customize each style. The garment is then ordered online and sewn on-demand to a client’s specifications.
OC Mix was held in the US from September 26 to 27. It featured eight booths carrying 20 contemporary clothing and accessories brands. This is a compact trade event organized four times a year by Z Supply. OC Mix is a curated show representing the best of the Southern California fashion industry. It’s about creating a space for buyers and brands to come together and work in an easy, relaxed environment. The intimate show gives buyers the opportunity to preview contemporary apparel and accessory brands in a location that makes doing business more seamless.
This show attracts people who are open to new vendors. Participants included Wildfire Mercantile, an upscale clothing store that carries higher-end Western-style apparel and boho looks. Other stores included the Tanya B Boutique, The Fort & The Clubhouse, The Denim Bar, Johnny Jeans, Aniche Boutique, Blue Windows and Level 99, a hip twill-and-denim-based brand.
Z Supply’s labels include Black Swan, Others Follow, White Crow and Rag Poets. The show is good for crossover business from other vendors whose lines might complement each other.
The two-day event had a low-key vibe with lots of refreshments and food and a casual feel. Buyers were treated to a complimentary breakfast, lunch and a wine-and-cheese happy hour on both days.
