Amazon is tapping some of the biggest athletic apparel suppliers to foray into private label sportswear. The project is new and long-term contracts haven’t been signed yet. Manufacturers are producing small amounts of products for Amazon as part of a trial.

Amazon previously ventured into private label fashion, offering office clothing, jackets and dresses under names like Goodthreads and Paris Sunday. But pushing into active wear would bring fresh competition to some of the world’s biggest athletic brands.

Amazon also has been hiring staff with know-how in private-label athletic apparel. Amazon has developed its own brands in part because they fill gaps in its inventory. If customers are searching for a certain type of shoe or skirt, and don’t see much of a selection from established brands, Amazon wants to be able to offer its own options.

This also sends a message to brands reluctant to sell their full inventory on Amazon. If shoppers can’t find a brand’s products on the site, Amazon will make its own substitutes and become a competitor. The move may be unwelcome for active wear companies already struggling to stand out in a sea of competition and discounts. Online apparel sales accounted for 19 per cent of all apparel sales in 2016, up from 11 per cent in 2011.

As a large number of exhibitors display their home, lifestyle, fashion, textiles and furniture products at IHGF-Delhi Fair, EPCH organises seminar on trends and forecasts during each edition of the show by inviting international designers and experts.

This is to enable exhibitors keep abreast and prepare their collections for the future as per trends prevalent in the world market.

One of the objectives of EPCH is to create awareness through seminars and workshops on export marketing, procedures and documentation, packaging, quality compliances, service tax, foreign trade policy, design development and awareness about trends and forecasts prevalent in the world market.

During the 44th edition of IHGF-Delhi a seminar on trends and forecasts for spring/summer 2019 was organised in which PJ Arnador, Filipino international designer, and Erika Mierow, Trendcoach, Germany, apprised participants about trends for the coming season about key colors, moods of the consumers, relevant materials, dominant patterns and significant images for 2019. Such sessions help the handicrafts exporting community tap foreign investment for scaling up production of handicrafts, sourcing raw materials, designing and crafting etc. to increase the global market share for their products.

India is regarded as one of the fastest growing economies of the world, ranked among the ten top attractive destinations for inbound investment. The handicraft sector is the largest employment providing sector in India after agriculture.

India’s north east is known for eco-friendly crafts. Assam, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim and Tripura are known for abundant natural materials such as cane, bamboo, timber, silk, clay, natural fiber, etc. The region’s skills are unique and well-guarded through generations.

The large number of tribes and sub-tribes bring into this region’s export basket natural and handmade products from about 450 different communities. They incorporate the use of modern sustainable technologies to enhance quality.

EPCH’s export promotion programs provide a platform to the artisans, crafts persons and manufacturers of north eastern State through fairs and trade shows.

About 20 exporters, entrepreneurs and crafts persons from the region are displaying in the special theme pavilion the complete range of handicrafts of the region such as water hysin, muga silk and eri silk, apart from products made of cane and bamboo.

Another theme pavilion from Jodhpur mega cluster has also been set up in which ten artisans are displaying their skills of leather embroidery, horn, tie and dye crafts, embroidery and appliqué hand block printing, punja durries, art metal ware and woodcraft.

This participation will definitely boost the morale of the small and upcoming entrepreneurs of these regions and motivate others to step up their efforts in product design and innovation, so that they can also get connected to the international buying community.

"Sportswear market has been attracting a lot of clout of late and now women are becoming their biggest growth drivers. A study by Allied Market Research found the sportswear category will grow at a CAGR of 4.3 per cent to reach a total market worth of $184.6 billion by 2020. And though the men’s sportswear segment make up around 52 per cent of the revenue and is the highest revenue-generating segment in sports apparel market, every brand has realised the potential of women’s segment that is expected to grow at a relatively higher CAGR of 5.7 per cent during the forecast period. "

Sportswear market has been attracting a lot of clout of late and now women are becoming their biggest growth drivers. A study by Allied Market Research found the sportswear category will grow at a CAGR of 4.3 per cent to reach a total market worth of $184.6 billion by 2020. And though the men’s sportswear segment make up around 52 per cent of the revenue and is the highest revenue-generating segment in sports apparel market, every brand has realised the potential of women’s segment that is expected to grow at a relatively higher CAGR of 5.7 per cent during the forecast period. This is because of the increased involvement of women in sporting and fitness activities across the globe. Owing to this, sportswear brands are launching ‘women’ specific lines into their portfolio. For instance, Nike and JD Sports have opened up stores that are all-woman because of the trending size of women sportswear market. Significantly, the sport industry is encouraging collaborations between sports brands and fashion industry in order to produce new styles to cover the needs of the young and women segment that are significantly growing over the past years.

Campaigns focussed on women audience

Nike recently launched #BetterForIt campaign to attract women audience, and the efforts have paid off. Going by the success, it launched a web-series called ‘Margo vs. Lily’. Under Armour, too has been aggressively pushing this agenda by taking on board stars like Gisele Bundchen and Misty Copeland. Their catchphrase ‘I will what I want’ has created quite a buzz in the market. According to consulting firm Conlumino, Under Armour’s business approximately splits at about $1.14 billion for women and $2.69 billion for men.

In 2016, Puma introduced cross-category collections by merging sports and fashion. Its ‘Do You’ campaign inspires confidence in women around the world, collaborating with a number of famous female brand ambassadors such as Rihanna, Kylie Jenner, Cara Delevingne and the New York City Ballet has helped to tell a powerful story. Recently Adidas has also hired a new team to overlook the new direction with the dictate, ‘Bring the active woman to the store’. The company has brought onboard Christine Day, former CEO of Lululemon, to advise the brand. Taking the initiative one notch up, it has launched a subscription box specifically for women called Avenue A, which contains a selection of seasonal training gear for women, curated by what Adidas is calling ‘fashion-forward trendsetters and trainers’. With such initiatives, it’s sure to be raining options for women in sportwear.

Bangladesh has some 4,500 readymade garment factories and nearly all of these will be shortly compliant. By next June the process is expected to be complete. Before the Rana Plaza tragedy garment factories focused only on child labor, limiting working hours, wages for overtime duties and on achieving technical compliance like fire extinguishers, gloves, boots, helmets for workers.

However, after the disaster, stakeholders went ahead with structural, fire and electrical safety, which was almost zero in their vision earlier. Factories now use proper electrical cables. Safety standards in the industry as well as the well being of workers are being monitored.

Now factories are inspected jointly by experts supported by ILO and the buyers’ platforms Accord and Alliance. Bangladesh now has 67 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) factories, certified by the United States Green Building Council, of which 13 are platinum. Seven out of world’s top 13 LEED certified factories are in Bangladesh and 280 more are in the pipeline for getting certification.

Meanwhile the labor law was amended in July 2013 and another revision of the law is in progress. A workers’ welfare fund has been created to which the garment industry alone contributed around 10 million dollars last fiscal year.

Cotton farmers in Telangana are demanding a price of Rs 7,000 a quintal. They feel the MSP of Rs 4,320 for the year is not remunerative. They also want the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) to open more procurement centers.

A large number of farmers switched to cotton this time as prices of paddy, turmeric, mirchi and red gram fell sharply last year. If farmers get a price lower than that, they expect to be compensated for the difference. The state sowed a record acreage of 46 lakh acres for the fiber crop this year. After witnessing dismal returns in crops such as chillies, turmeric and red gram, farmers returned to cotton in a big way. As against the suggested price of Rs 4,000, a significant number of farmers got Rs 5,000, resulting in an additional acreage of over 10 lakh acres this time.

Though procurement generally takes off after Diwali, some markets have already recorded arrivals of the commodity. The prices being offered are not very encouraging. Farmers in Telangana reduced the cotton acreage in the previous year and went for red gram, whose acreage went up to 11 lakh acres from the normal area of six lakh acres.

In the second quarter global yarn production rose by 11 per cent. The drivers of the growth are: Asia and Brazil. Yarn production decreased by ten percent in the US and 18 per cent in Africa. Global fabric production improved by nine per cent, with the most significant increases in Brazil, Asia, and Africa.

Global yarn stocks decreased by one per cent. Asia, Europe, and Brazil saw their yarn inventories increase, but the world average is driven down by a 12 per cent decrease of yarn stocks in Egypt. But global yarn stocks have improved compared to the same quarter a year earlier.

Global fabric inventories decreased by eight per cent. The strongest decrease is observed in Brazil. Asia and the US are fairly stable and Europe’s stocks rose by seven per cent. Global yarn orders have fallen in all regions in the second quarter. European yarn orders decreased by almost seven per cent. Reductions of six per cent and four per cent were recorded in Brazil and Asia.

Asian and European fabric orders remained stable and rose in Brazil and Africa. In comparison to the second quarter of last year, Asian and Brazilian fabric orders declined significantly while they slightly increased in Europe and Africa.

US cotton continued to be the major supplying source for spinners in Vietnam. Cotton imported from the US made up around 40 per cent of Vietnam’s total cotton imports over the past few years. Australian cotton remained the second largest supplier. Brazilian cotton took the third place. Vietnam’s cotton imports in September 2017 increased 56.09 per cent year on year and 1.55 per cent month on month.

In the first nine months of 2017, cotton imports were up 28.23 per cent from the corresponding period of last year. For September’s imports, the major supplier was the United States, with a proportion of 47.30 per cent.

From January to September 2017, cotton imports of Vietnam were up 28.23 per cent year on year. In September, cotton imports were up 56.09 per cent from a year ago. Vietnam’s cotton consumption has been increasing at an average 22 per cent year on year for the last five years.

In September 2017, textile and garment exports of Vietnam were up 9.76 per cent year on year and down 11.14 per cent month on month. In January-September 2017, export value increased 8.51 per cent from a year ago. The export value decreased somewhat in September.

In the first nine months of the year, exports of Taiwan’s textile products edged up 1.5 per cent from the same period last year. Taiwan’s textile exports are forecast to grow five per cent this year. The growth momentum is expected to extend into the fourth quarter amid improving industry sentiment.

Taiwanese textile suppliers will also benefit from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics over the coming years, as local companies are strong producers of functional wear and high-performance sportswear for athletes. Some US-based e-commerce operators are trying to manufacture low-priced apparel by themselves, but Taiwanese firms still hold niches in the functional and sportswear markets.

The emergence of e-commerce operators has gradually changed the supply chains in the global retailing industry, but that would only have a limited impact on local textile and fabric companies. The Taiwanese textile industry has developed environmentally-friendly concepts and done recycled polymer and polymer blends. From yarns for apparel to industrial and sport accessories, recycled yarns are growing in importance and are a core part of Taiwan’s textile industry.

Mixtures of new technologies and fashion allow new design elements that were hard to imagine in the past. Polymer based yarn developments in polyester, nylon, recycled and blended with natural fibers, lead the way.

Itema has opened a training center in Pakistan. It follows in the footsteps of the original in Italy, inaugurated in 2015. The center will give training on latest-generation weaving equipment from Itema, the innovative airjet and rapier technology, and on how customers as well as students and interested stakeholders can get the most out of their looms.

Itema is the world’s largest privately held provider of advanced weaving solutions, including best-in-class weaving machines, spare parts and integrated services. Itema sees Pakistan as one of the most strategically important markets and a country with a strong potential for continued growth. The concept of the center is that it’s essential for Itema to have a physical presence in a country in order to create a dynamic and positive environment for business. This will enable to bring Itema closer to customers and will enable Itema to serve the Pakistani textile industry with best-in-class, innovative weaving machinery to enable Pakistani mills to produce high quality fabrics and achieve maximum success in the worldwide market.

The center has dedicated training courses for key weaving personnel and fully functional and ergonomic facilities. Itema’s other such centers are in Switzerland, China, India, Japan and the US.