FW
The International Apparel and Textile Fair is being held in Dubai from November 1 to 3, 2017. The Indian pavilion comprises 51 leading manufacturers and exporters of textile and apparel who are into various product categories including: men’s wear, kids’ wear, high fashion women’s wear, technical textiles etc. They represent the best of what India is offering to the world in the textile industry.
India’s exports to the UAE during 2015-16 was 22.7 per cent of India’s garment exports to the world. Indian companies and businesses have benefited from leveraging Dubai’s position as a supply market to the Gulf and other regions. India is the UAE’s largest trading partner with exports in 2016 touchin $32 billion.
The products offered at the exhibition will be a supply base for UAE garment manufacturers. The unique proposition for both India and the UAE is that both have a well developed textile and clothing industry which can complement each other in faster growth. India has a huge export potential especially in categories such as women’s wear, kids’ wear, knitwear, home furnishings and technical textiles used in the construction industry, agriculture, medicine etc. We are in a position to promote ‘Brand India’ in the UAE and other markets in the region.
Every year, H&M burns up to 12 tons of unsold clothing. The brand says it does this if the pieces involved do not fulfill safety regulations, are mould infested, do not fulfill H&M’s strict chemical requirements or contain harmful levels of chemical products or abnormal rates of humidity.
The Swedish brand is determined that such products should not under any circumstances be either sold to customers or recycled. It says its chemical regulations go further than the law demands as it wants customers to feel totally safe while using its products. The brand also outlines what happens to its unsold merchandise: Products stopped for other reasons than health and safety are either donated to charity organisations or re-used through re-use/recycling companies.
Those products in stores that are not sold at full price are sold at a reduced price through sales. H&M also actively moves garments to stores or markets where it sees a greater demand or stores them for the next season. At a last resort, it considers external buyers of its overstock. H&M is investing significantly in the supply chain, such as in new logistics solutions with greater levels of automation, but also in optimising its lead times.
Ginning mills in Telangana have been urged to help cotton growers. Cotton growers in the state have been finding it difficult to get a fair deal because of record production this year. Now mills will be given incentives to step up cotton purchases from farmers in the market.
An exclusive delint and solvent industrial park will be set up in the state if ginning mill owners come forward and invest. A budget of Rs 1,200 crores has been allocated by Telangana’s textile sector for 2017-18. Some industrial parks will also be established with housing for workers and staff proposed within the textile parks. Telangana has achieved a year on year growth of 10.1 per cent in gross state domestic product as compared to the national average of 7.1 per cent in financial year ’17. The state has also been ranked first for ease of doing business reforms for 2015-16 by the World Bank.
Telangana is in the process of formulating a textile and apparel policy that contemplates waiver of personal loans of handloom weavers. Fresh loans are proposed to be given at three per cent interest. Subsidies will be given for capital investment and purchase of equipment by entrepreneurs. Tax incentives and power subsidies are being examined.
Singapore Fashion Week (SGFW) was held from October 26 to 28, 2017. This edition veered away from a full-on focus on runway shows and introduced a series of fashion technology talks. More than 20 speakers discussed ideas and issues revolving around digital marketing, developments in technology and the changing face of retail, as well as how all of these could impact the fashion industry.
Some common themes throughout the talks were on: the impact of disruptive technology on the fashion industry, brands in an omni-channel world and how investors see fashion developments in artificial intelligence might change the industry, how the new face of marketing involves striving to use data intelligently and the role of digital influencers in marketing.
The talk on ‘Zipcode’, attracted around 500 participants. Speakers included local clothing labels Love, Bonito's co-founder Rachel Lim, who discussed her online and offline retail experiences; Goldman Sachs' Southeast Asian head of media and technology investment banking Andy Tai, who shared his thoughts on what investors are looking for; New York designer Jason Wu, who showed his spring 2018 collection and spoke about how he started his eponymous label, adapting to the many ways in which fashion is viewed and consumed, including online, and how he thought designers could make their runway shows stand out.
Some 150 garment manufacturing plants in the Delhi-NCR region have been hit by a Supreme Court order banning the use of petroleum coke and furnace oil. This has come at a time when exports peak due to big demand. Around 80 per cent of exports happen between November and March, as this is the festive season in international markets.
The Delhi-NCR belt is one of the country’s top textile manufacturing hubs. It is home to around 1,000 exporters that supply garments to many international companies, including Inditex (owner of Zara) and Walmart. The ban has been imposed due to environmental reasons. The companies have filed a petition seeking more time to move to alternate fuel systems. One of the options is to use piped natural gas, which is three times more expensive than pet coke and requires a capital investment of Rs 2 to Rs 4 crores per plant.
India’s apparel exports are expected to increase on the back of demand from EU and US markets. Along with Cambodia and Vietnam, the country has emerged as a top sourcing hub for global fashion brands as steep labor costs and compliance issues have plagued sourcing hubs such as China and Bangladesh.
The College of Fashion and Design (CFD) in Dubai is a comprehensive fashion design and fashion business management college.
It strives to enrich and empower creative and entrepreneurial minds to fashion their future. It promotes a learning environment, fostering research and stimulating innovation to empower students.
With world-class infrastructure and facilities, state-of-the-art technology, experienced global faculty, multi-cultural student base, international curriculum and ambitious growth plans, CFD offers students exceptional career opportunities in the ever evolving and progressive world of fashion and design. The curriculum boasts of a rigorous academic framework designed around limitless creativity.
It imparts a global perspective, fosters creativity and transforms artists into professionals. The courses offered are tailored to develop technical and intellectual abilities while helping students master the fundamentals of design.
The faculty comprises award winning scholars who are actively associated with the fashion industry. They impart industry insights and contexts offering experiential learning to the students. The mentoring program is further accentuated with regular visits by industry veterans who share their creative insights, success formulae and real-life experiences.
CFD is the only institution providing global programs accredited by the ministry of education, UAE.
German chemical suppliers and the sporting goods industry are working together on finding marketing opportunities for safe chemicals. Named Reach, the regulation increases transparency, cuts out not-so good competitors through restrictions and authorisations. Both chemical producers that supply to the textile sector and sporting goods trade associations are involved in the project.
The project aims to discover how to create a system that brings demand pull right up to the chemical suppliers in order to promote less toxic chemicals. The two most important factors are traceability of chemicals in the supply chain and knowledge about substances and processes. These two would enable brands and retailers to know what is happening in their supply chains.
The results will now feed into the Ask Reach IT tool for suppliers, which will help manufacturers supply information for the consumer app. Front-runner companies involved in the project will be able to test IT tools for traceability, to see whether they are appropriate for their needs and can be integrated into contracts.
However, the whole system works only when it has been fed from the very beginning. Chemical suppliers need to be transparent about the ingredients of their formulations. Companies can also use the research to inform their own internal policies.
Pakistan has imposed antidumping duties ranging from 3.25 per cent to 11.35 per cent on imports of polyester filament yarn from China and 6.35 per cent on imports from Malaysia. This has not gone down well with the user industry, which says it has to pay antidumping duties of upto 75 per cent of its requirement of polyester filament yarn, which is a burden. They feel they are being unnecessarily penalized. The antidumping duties would increase cost substantially for the user industry. Besides, fabrics manufactured from polyester filament yarn and garments made of art silk fabric are also exported and imposition of antidumping duties would hurt exports worth millions of dollars, besides creating unemployment for thousands of skilled workers.
The total requirements of the art silk fabric manufacturing industry, which mainly consists of small and medium-sized units, are more than 2,20,000 metric tons per annum. However, four local producers of polyester filament yarn have the capacity to produce only around 8,500 metric tons of fully drawn textured polyester filament yarn, which is only four per cent of the total requirement of the downstream weaving industry, and producing around 53,000 metric tons of drawn textured polyester yarn, which is only 25 per cent of the total requirements of the downstream weaving industry, while the remaining 75 per cent requirement is met through imported yarn.
The global textile industry is one biggest polluter and needs to focus on recycling and reducing the amount of clothing that finds its way into landfills and oceans, a Zero Waste conference sponsored by Metro Vancouver focused on this. To keep up with the latest fashion trends, today’s consumers buy clothes more often than they used to, and they don’t keep them long enough. The industry also has a large environmental footprint, extending from water use to sourcing materials to production and distribution. Microfibers from clothing are also finding their way into the ocean, posing a threat to marine life. As many as 2,000 fibers from fleece and polyester fabrics are released during a single washing cycle. Almost all of those find their way through municipal sewage systems to the ocean.
Microplastics can be ingested by plankton, invertebrates and other marine life forming the base of the food chain. Ingestion of plastics may also make organisms think they are full, causing them to starve. There are on an average more than 3,000 particles of plastic in one cubic meter of sea water in the Strait of Georgia.
The textile industry needs a major rethink on design, some entrepreneurial innovators who are going to look at how clothes are made, how they can be more efficient to create clothes that are more durable and don’t just end up in the landfill, and can have secondary and tertiary uses. The mixing of natural materials (such as cotton) with synthetics (such as polyester) creates added problems.
Surat’s textile markets bear a deserted look. Power looms shut for Diwali have yet to open. First it was demonetization and no its GST. Power loom production has dropped by half as 90,000 looms have shut and 50,000 labourers have lost their jobs. Traders say filing returns has become next to impossible.
Traders in Surat are demanding an uniform GST structure in the entire textile value chain. Traders would have to pay five per cent GST but won’t be able to use the input tax credit. On the other hand, the cloth manufactured by the composite units will be much cheaper. This, they say, will dent the margins of traders and weavers and lead to job loss in the sector.
They fear after GST implementation, the textile trade will be on the verge of closure. Traders, weavers and even synthetic yarn manufacturers fear they won’t be able to survive in the GST regime. Surat is the country’s largest manmade fiber wholesale market. Small traders having a turnover below Rs 70 lakhs per year are experiencing difficulty in sending their goods to other states.
Implementation of GST has led to many problems for traders. Grey fabric manufacturers are not giving goods on credit and want cash payment. This has created a lot of problems for small traders who can't arrange for hard cash.
