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Common Objective (CO), a new digital platform that aims to make sustainable business decisions easier for the fashion industry has been launched.
The digital platform has been launched by Ethical Fashion Group in collaboration with the Global Organic Textile Standard (GOTS), Fairtrade, World Fairtrade Organisation (WFTO), Fashion Revolution, and other leading fashion industry bodies
By matching actors along the supply chain and providing data-driven, solutions-focused information, CO hopes to improve the day-to-day practices of textiles and clothing companies around the world.
The CO platform will act as a basic tool that will enable fashion professionals and businesses to do business better, match users based on their specified needs, with suppliers, buyers, experts and resources and reward sustainability by assigning weights to several elements of CO business profiles that impacts search ranking on the site.
The Ethical Fashion Group has also mapped the size and impact of the fashion industry – drawing from over 500 sources including the Pulse Report, the Fashion Transparency Index, market research data and production data.
The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) between the United States, Mexico and Canada looks like a distant dream.
There are gaping differences on a host of issues, including intellectual property, agricultural access, labor and energy.
The US continues to work toward the best possible deal for American farmers, ranchers, workers, and businesses. The deadlock has risen over US demands to raise wages in the auto sector and boost the North American content of cars made in the three Nafta nations.
The move is a clear swipe at Mexico, which the US says added low-wage manufacturing jobs at Americans’ expense after Nafta was signed in 1994.
On the other hand Mexico says any renegotiated Nafta that implies losses of existing Mexican jobs is unacceptable.
In 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement came into effect, creating one of the world’s largest free trade zones and laying the foundations for strong economic growth and rising prosperity for Canada, the United States, and Mexico. It aims at demonstrating how free trade increases wealth and competitiveness, delivering real benefits to families, farmers, workers, manufacturers, and consumers. It has set a valuable example of the benefits of trade liberalization for the rest of the world.
Online sales of personal luxury goods, which currently account for 8 per cent of the global luxury market, is expected to more than triple by 2025, reaching €74 billion. Nearly one-fifth of personal luxury sales will take place online.
Going digital is a critical for growth and a powerful way to increase brand equity. It also enables companies to reimagine key enterprise processes, both front end and back of house.
Recently, a Luxury 4.0 operating model has begun to emerge with brands and retailers using data to get closer to customers, capture emerging preferences, and streamline the process of turning ideas into new products.
Nearly 80 percent of luxury sales today are “digitally influenced”: consumers hit one or more digital touchpoints in their luxury-shopping journeys.
Although digital’s impact on consumer behavior and luxury purchases varies by product category and price point, nearly all luxury shoppers have enthusiastically embraced the digital lifestyle.
Lectra recently addressed how the fashion industry can respond to the shifts within the market during its annual “Fashion Goes Digital” summit in Bordeaux, France.
The event started with a high-level view of the market that identifies industry challenges while offering solutions. Central trends like digitisation, on-demand fashion, customisation and personalisation were the main focus of the conference.
The conference covered a wide range of topics such as how millennial consumer behavior is using the shopping environment to the influence of augmented reality, machine learning and artificial intelligence on retail.
The presentations revealed that advanced technology isn’t the only factor causing drastic transformations for fashion and footwear retail.
As highlighted in the discussion led by Nick Chiarelli of consumer trends research firm Foresight Factory, everything from climate change to economic uncertainty has altered trends in consumer behavior over recent years.
Canton Fair was held in China, April 15 to May 5. This is a leading platform to connect global manufacturers and buyers. It is a comprehensive exhibition covering a wide range of industries and sectors, products and commodities.
The fair was attended by 2,03,346 buyers from 214 countries and regions, a 5.3 per cent year-on-year increase and the highest in five years. The number of buyers from countries included in China's Belt and Road Initiative reached 90,576, which marked a 3.86 per cent year-on-year increase.
The event welcomed 1,076 global chain purchasing companies, 109 of which are ranked among the top 250 worldwide, including Walmart, Carrefour, Schwartz, Amazon and Aldi.
The final figures were the highest total for the spring exhibition in four years.
The fair originated in 1957. It comprises 48 trading delegations, including thousands of foreign trade companies, factories, scientific research institutions, foreign enterprises, wholly foreign-owned enterprises, private enterprises, all of which are of good credibility and strong financial capability.
Diesel will launch the second round of its “Red Tag Project” and a capsule collection in collaboration with an influential designer during Milan Fashion Week.
For the first round of the “Red Tag Project”, Diesel brought out a capsule collection comprising ten pieces in collaboration with Shayne Oliver, the designer previously behind the “Hood by Air” label.
The collection was shown at Paris Fashion Week and will be available in store at outlets such as Opening Ceremony from August.
US imports of apparel from China during January-March 2018 were 0.87 per cent higher than in the same period of 2017.In volume terms, Chinese exports to the US increased 3.74 per cent.
In 2017, China's apparel exports to the US fell 3.17 per cent. But these exports were 33.67 per cent of total apparel imports of the US in terms of value and 42 per cent in volume.
In the first three months of 2018, China's share remained the highest, but was dwindling. In value, China’s share in US apparel imports was 30.17 per cent and in volume 38 per cent.
Vietnam is the second largest apparel supplier to USA. US imports of apparel from Vietnam during January-March 2018 increased 3.32 per cent compared to the same period in 2017. In 2017, Vietnam's apparel exports to the US had clocked a seven per cent growth.
US imports of garments from Bangladesh during January-March 2018 fell 0.92 per cent. In volume terms, imports fell 0.06 per cent. In 2017, imports from Bangladesh were down by 4.46 per cent.
US buyers are diversifying their sourcing base.
Imports have surged from Turkey, Myanmar, Cambodia, AGOA countries for mass apparel. And imports have clocked impressive growth from the fashion capitals of the world - Italy, France, Spain.
APLF Ltd, a joint venture between SIC Group and UBM Asia, recently held the Design-A-Bag Online Competition 2018 in Hong Kong. The annual event brought together the global design community to fashion access trade fair in Hong Kong to showcase their creations to the world and exchange design concepts among talents from various cultures and backgrounds.
Lemniscate Handbag designed by Ho Kuan Teck of Singapore was selected Best Overall Design out of the three finalists who received a 4-week bag design course in Milan valued at USD 4,200 with USD 1,000 accommodation allowance at the prestigious Arsutoria School on top of the final prizes. In the online favourite design category, voted by the Facebook audience, "Circular Bag" from Spain emerged as the winner with 345 likes.
The judging panel consisted of representatives from Giordano, All Saints, Jayne Fashion Consultancy, The Arsutoria School, Korea Colour & Fashion Trend Centre, Edizioni AF and OO Agency Paris.
Bangladesh has relaxed the restriction on the import of raw materials, which have already been shipped, under the free of cost scheme for the readymade garment industry.
Export-oriented readymade garment manufacturers have been allowed to release the excess raw materials, mainly fabrics, imported beyond the permissible limit. A hundred per cent export-oriented garment manufacturer can import raw materials worth one-third of its total export earnings in the previous year under the scheme without paying any duty and other taxes.
Foreign buyers sometimes directly provide raw materials free of cost for manufacturers to speed up the export process. But many importers from the readymade garment sector import raw materials, mainly fabrics, up to several times the limit beyond the permissible level.
The provisions were relaxed as many apparel exporters had already bought excess raw materials under the facility.
Some importers brought raw materials several times higher than the limit and sold them in the local market instead of producing finished goods for export. According to the order, raw materials only recently imported, unreleased and those which have already been shipped will get the benefit.
The facility will not be applicable for goods imported in future after releasing the current consignments.
Bangladesh’s exports to Turkey in the first ten months of the current fiscal fell by 19.35 per cent.
Turkey was a very promising market for Bangladesh. A good quantity of apparels used to be re-exported to Russia from Turkey. But Bangladesh lost its competitiveness in Turkey’s market as the country imposed a safeguard duty on apparel imports in 2011.
Turkey imposed the safeguard duty at a rate of 17 per cent in September 2011 on apparel imports from least developed countries, including Bangladesh.
Following the imposition of the safeguard duty, Bangladesh’s exports to Turkey declined by 24.23 per cent in fiscal year ’12 from fiscal year ’11, while the exports in fiscal year ’13 rose by 15.57 per cent. The country’s exports to Turkey in fiscal year ’14 grew by 34.23 per cent.
Export earnings from Turkey in fiscal year ’15 fell by 15.80 per cent. Export earnings from Turkey declined by 8.18 per cent in fiscal year ’16 while earnings fell by 4.57 per cent in fiscal year ’17.
Turkey is also a major readymade garment producing country and a competitor of Bangladesh on the global market with annual clothing exports of around 17 billion dollars and textile exports of nearly ten billion dollars.
