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Eastman has launched Naia, a sustainable fiber with easy-care attributes. The fiber is made from wood pulp from fast-growing pine and eucalyptus trees sourced from certified forests. Eastman does not use pulp that contains any endangered or ancient species. The trees are subject to an established certification process.
Eastman has been making cellulosic fiber for decades. Its acetate fibers were successful in the fashion market, but there were some drawbacks. Many of the fabrics had to be dry-cleaned to maintain color fastness and prevent shrinkage. The company saw an opportunity to reformulate and upgrade its acetate yarns as well as change the processes used to dye and finish the fibers and yarns. The result is Naia.
Although Eastman launched Naia for the intimate apparel market, the company sees applications for the fiber throughout the fashion apparel market. It has a wide versatility in terms of the substrate as well as the designs possible. Knits, wovens, velvets can be done. Texturized yarns can be done. Twisted materials can be done, giving a crepe-like appearance on the fabric.
The fiber and yarns take colors well, and Naia can be used alone or blended with other fibers. Naia is a thermoplastic material, which means mills can apply heat to the fabric to change its appearance and give the final fabric a leather look.
World Fashion Convention was held in Brazil from October 17 to 18. The concept and the theme of the convention was: Compliance and Technology – Key Drivers for Industry and Retail, were very much in line with International Apparel Federation’s mission to unite the industry to help improve it.
Among those attending were the chief purchasing officers of major apparel brands and retailers. In addition to excellent speakers, delegates were treated to a great display of Brazilian hospitality and zest for life. Brazil is a people oriented country. Speakers from Brazil and from abroad made clear that the solutions to the many challenges in the fashion industry hinge around the ability and the willingness of people to embrace far reaching changes.
One presentation set the stage highlighting the amount of investments the industry still has to make to actually digitise the supply chain by stating that 64 per cent of the firms questioned spend less than one per cent of their sourcing value on digitisation.
On compliance, both C&A and PVH stressed the importance of changes in buying behavior permeating throughout the organization so that the strategy set out by the corporate social responsibility and sustainability officers really affects the entire operation and that suppliers receive the same message from all buyers’ representatives.
Accord on Fire and Building safety, the legally binding initiative to ensure safe workplaces for readymade garment factory workers, will continue beyond its May 2018 deadline as the local regulatory body is not ready yet in Bangladesh. It would continue operations until the local regulatory body demonstrated 'full capacity to inspect factories, compel remedies, and protect workers'.
According to a statement, the government confirmed last week it would extend permission for accord to continue beyond May 2018 until a joint monitoring committee, comprised of accord brand signatories, accord trade union signatories, BGMEA, ILO and the government, agreed that the "stated conditions" for a handover are met. The readiness conditions include demonstrated proficiency in inspection capacity, remediation of hazards, and enforcement of the law against non-compliant factories, full transparency of governance and remediation progress, and investigation and fair resolution of workers’ safety complaints.
Jenny Holdcroft, IndustriALL Global Union Assistant General Secretary and Accord Board member, stated they have always aimed for the Accord functions to transition to a national regulatory body provided that the full capacity, transparency, and governance are in place and that it can be assured that the worker protections under the Accord continue to be safeguarded.
Accord wanted to continue operations for three more years and signed a new agreement in June this year. The High Court on Oct 16 halted the new accord between the fashion brands and trade unions, asking why it should not be cancelled for signing without permission from the government, owners and workers of the country.
Accord and Alliance for Workers Safety were formed after the deaths of over 1,100 workers in the 2013 Rana Plaza collapse raised concerns among the buyer countries over workplace safety in Bangladesh. As per the commerce minister the Alliance is winding up its operations by the May 2018 deadline.
More than 100 designers from Russia, Georgia and Kazakhstan, new names and traditional participants attended Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week Russia.
Linen suits and maxi skirts were harmonically combined with long shirts embroidered in colorful ornaments. Cotton tunics and dresses with sky blue inserts were enhanced by light elegant mantles, hand woven lacework collars, as well as fine feather and red linen jackets. The garments were manufactured using different embroidery techniques, appliqué and separate artistic crafts patterns.
As part of the spring/summer 2018 collection Vyacheslav Zaytsev came up with a comprehensive women’s wardrobe set for two seasons, from long bell-bottomed coats for cold spring to light silk blouses with summer appliqué. The fans of the fashion house could trace how colors in the artist’s creations evolved, as white, checkerboard coloring and red-and-white spots were added to the equal combination of black and red, while laconic blends of emerald and blue gradually contrasted the basic collection colors.
Provided by MTS company, Generation M is a digital platform that supports talents coming from different fields of knowledge. As part of a joint project by the Russian Fashion Council and MTS company young winners of the Fashion Generation M online contest presented their first collections. The winners were chosen among more than 4,000 participants from all over the country.
Amid demonetisation, the Indian textile & clothing industry grew at around 6-7 per cent in the first quarter of the financial year 2017-18. Garments and apparels contribute nearly 50 per cent of all India’s T&C exports, and today stand at $35 billion, which is close to competing countries such as Bangladesh, Turkey and Vietnam. Thanks to a slew of investments and increasing capacities in the knit fabric and knitwear segments, knitwear is registering 30 per cent growth of all textile production; and is slated to ride India’s export potential to the target of $50bn in total T&C exports by 2020. As per studies, the knits sector, along with home textiles, remains the sunshine area for India’s exports, when the growth and exports of yarns, grey fabrics and denim etc., have plateaued out.
India among top knits exporters
The ranking of the top 10 exporters of textile and apparel products remained unchanged in 2016, with China (36 per cent), India (5 per cent) and Bangladesh (4 per cent) in the first three positions. UN Comtrade trade data reveal, global trade in textiles and apparel fell in 2016 for the second consecutive year, due to weak demand. There was a 1.4 per cent decline to $765 bn for 2016, from $776bn in 2015, which is a cause of concern for many developing countries including India. The Indian textile industry, currently estimated at around $120bn, is expected to reach $230bn by 2020. Indeed the emergence of new developing economies such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Kenya and Ethiopia, is posing challenges and concerns for apparel exports from India.
Tirupur continues to flourish as knit hub
In order to sustain its position, the government has given a boost via capital subsidies under the ATUF, where new and existing manufacturers gain 25 per cent outright grant on machinery investment, a policy that also drives employment generation under the Skill India mission. Given the success of ‘brand Tirupur’ for knits in South India, the government is going all out to support new investments in the knits and knitwear/apparel segments, to help drive India’s global textile trade share to more than its existing 5 per cent.
Over recent decades, Tirupur has emerged a brand for knits sourcing and boasts of a turnover of Rs 300 billion, derived from both exports and domestic knitwear supplies. Ludhiana is the distant second and, perhaps, Kolkata (mainly for underwear segment) is the third competitor, with Delhi NCR the fourth key hub. Tirupur alone contributes nearly 50 per cent of India’s total knitted textile and clothing exports. Tirupur has become a benchmark for India for its competitiveness and the quality of its knitwear exports. It has already delivered knitwear exports the tune of $1bn in the first quarter of the current FY 2017-18. Exports are projected to grow in the current quarter, due to new global orders for summer 2018. One of the weakest links in the knits sector is the lack of modern processing, with a focus on fabric printing, which would be value-adding in terms of dyeing and printing and is required in order for the industry to be sustainable in its water conservation and green initiatives.
Germany and the United Kingdom will witness the highest absolute gains if the proposed Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between India and the European Union (EU) is concluded. With Brexit, India will stand to lose almost 21 per cent of the proposed gains from the FTA, which is officially called the Broad Based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA). As a result, India will then have to negotiate a separate trade pact with the UK to compensate for the losses.
But the EU is keen on an FTA with India. The EU wants more market access in India for textile and agriculture sectors. Among the sensitive issues is that of data adequacy, one of India’s long-standing demands. Some others are market access for agricultural items and labor and environmental standards.
For democracies, FTAs are not merely a function of economic benefit. The fundamental challenge is that agreements happen when the leadership feels it can politically sell it. For instance the business community in India says an FTA with the EU will increase competition and lead to job losses. The fear is that an FTA would put the domestic auto industry in India at risk from German counterparts.
Hebei has become the 10 lab to be certified under the ICA Bremen International Laboratory Certification Scheme. Which means Hebei joins nine other laboratories to become certified under the scheme, which has the aim of establishing an approved list of laboratories worldwide that meet a standard level of quality assurance.
Open to any international cotton testing laboratory, participating laboratories must meet a level of quality assurance based on specific criteria in eight modules, including conditioning, maintenance, calibration and testing procedures. 12 other labs are currently in the process of assessment. Once certified, they will become a laboratory of choice to resolve quality disputes and provide a service to the cotton industry.
ICA Bremen has developed the scheme based on American Society for Testing and Materials and Commercial Standardization of Instrument Testing of Cotton as well as building on the good practices of the United States Department of Agriculture and its own laboratory experience.
ICA Bremen is an international centre of excellence for cotton testing, research and quality training. Based in Germany the centre was launched in 2011. Its services include laboratory certification, laboratory testing, WCC classing authority, quality arbitration, round trials, cotton grade standards, research and development, training, quality expert certification and consultancy.
Bangladesh’s garment accessories sector is struggling. While prices of raw materials for garment accessories have increased by about 15 to 20 per cent, prices of finished products have declined by about 10 per cent. Buyers of garment accessories, usually readymade garment makers, are offering low prices as prices of apparel products have also declined in the global market over the last few years.
During January to July, prices of apparel products on an average saw a six per cent decline while their production cost increased by 18 per cent. Prices of garment products have declined by 4.31 per cent in the European market and 3.5 per cent in the US market over the last six months.
When garment makers face a price cut from their global buyers, they adjust prices by reducing the cost of production through cost cutting from fabrics, accessories and other heads. The country’s accessories sector failed to do any value addition to the industry last year although it made around 30 per cent value addition to products in the previous year. But it saves huge foreign currency by providing essential accessories to the readymade garment sector, the highest foreign exchange earner. The sector meets up to 95 per cent of the requirement of the country’s garment sector.
The Synthetic and Rayon Textiles Export Promotion Council (SRTEPC) has announced the appointment of S Balaraju as its executive director. Balarju who retired as recently as Additional Textile Commissioner,
An MBA in International Trade from Acharya Nagarjuna University, Andhra Pradesh, Balaraju has put in 35 years in textiles and MSME sectors. He took over as SRTEPC’s Executive Director from October 16. Balaraju was associated with the office of the textile commissioner for the past 20 years and retired as additional textile commissioner on August 31, 2017 after a long and remarkable career working on various posts. During his tenure Balaraju was actively involved in redefining the role of that office from a regulatory role to a developmental role. Balaraju has also worked with the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) as well as the ministry of labour and employment, government of India for a period of nearly 12 years.
Balaraju was among the first to lend support on behalf of the Union Ministry of Textiles. He was also the key driving force behind the establishment of a mini-textile park on about 16 acres of MIDC land in Malegaon. The SRTEPC, which was set up in 1954, is one of the oldest export promotion councils in India. It has played a transforming role over the years, inculcating export culture and promoting exports of Indian man-made fibre and textiles.
Cambodia’s garment and footwear exports may grow five per cent this year compared tp seven per cent in 2016. Apparel and footwear sector accounts for more than 70 per cent of the country’s total exports, with the vast majority of its products destined for the EU, US and Canada.
The country’s garment sector is expected to grow at a slower pace owing to increased competition from neighboring countries. However, preferential US trade access for specific travel-related items could help prop up the sector in the near term. Cambodia’s advantages remain its abundance of cheap labor and preferential trade status under the EU’s Everything But Arms scheme and duty-free access to the US for travel goods.
However, minimum wage hike may jeopardise the sector if worker productivity does not increase. Productivity remains a paramount concern. On paper monthly salary is 60 per cent cheaper in Cambodia compared to China. But the production speed in Cambodia is only 35 per cent compared to 75 per cent in China, which at the end of the day only makes Cambodia 30 per cent cheaper, when efficiency is factored in.
Cutting electricity costs or lowering import and export fees can lighten the burden on factory owners. If that doesn’t happen, production will suffer.
