FW
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.
Workers in Cambodia’s textiles and footwear industry will get a 11 per cent hike in minimum monthly wage from next year. Wages for garment workers have increased over 150 per cent over the past five years. The country has had to tackle competitiveness, with some arguing wage increases have made Cambodia less appealing for some firms.
The garment industry employs an estimated 7,00,000 workers in Cambodia, helping to sustain rural livelihoods in one of the world’s poorest countries. The sector generates seven billion dollars annually for the economy. The government will continue to delay taxing profits in the textile sector and eliminate export management fees.
Of course, workers’ unions are happy with the hike. But some garment manufacturers say the new minimum wage is beyond their affordability and the competitive level of the country. The garment manufacturing industry in Cambodia has become the fifth largest apparel supplier to the European Union behind China, Bangladesh, Turkey and India.
Improving labor productivity would be fundamental for Cambodia to remain competitive, given rising competition from other low-wage garment exporting countries. Europe today takes up 43 per cent of the Cambodian sector’s exports as opposed to 29 per cent taken by the US market.
Denimsandjeans.com was held in Bangalore from September 25 to 26. Over 1,500 buyers visited the two-day show to explore niche products exhibited by around 30 companies from Brazil, Bangladesh, Switzerland, Turkey, Ethiopia, Spain, Italy and many others. Major retailers and brands such as Marks & Spencer, H&M, GAP, VF Corporation, Li & Fung, Zara, Landmark, Tesco, Aditya Birla Fashion, Arvind Brands, Raymond and many others marked their presence at the show.
Teams from export houses including Gokaldas Exports, Orient Craft and many others also visited the show. The show provided a single platform to the global denim industry, be it manufacturers, buyers, suppliers or traders to showcase and explore innovations in denim. It brought together major stakeholders in the supply chain.
Seminars on latest innovations, trends, technologies, developments and sustainability in the denim industry were also held during the two days. India is the second largest manufacturer of denim fabrics after China and the second biggest consumer of denim apparel globally. The country, with immense potential, is expected to grow at a fast pace in the coming years. India is set to get a big lead over the US and the EU in the coming years, as consumption increases in Tier II and III cities.
Bangladesh is modernising 208 readymade garment factories across the country into international standard green buildings. The facilities will have safer working conditions. After the collapse of Rana Plaza in 2013, the country has taken multiple initiatives. The initiatives include safe building and fire safety arrangements to ensure a sound and congenial working atmosphere in the country’s garment industry.
Since 2011, 67 Bangladeshi readymade garment factories have received LEED Certification from the US Green Building Council, one of the top global green buildings rating systems. Bangladesh’s garment export earnings have been increasing day-by-day, yet to achieve 50 billion dollar target by 2021, overall productivity needs to be upgraded. The textile industry employs around four million citizens.
The industry registered $28.14 billion in export earnings in the recently concluded 2016-17 fiscal year. The readymade garment sector is the country’s largest source for export earnings. Readymade garments exported from Bangladesh represent around six per cent of the global clothing market. The country is the world’s second largest readymade garment exporter with advantages like a low labor cost, favorable business climate, and well-established transport facility. International fashion brands like Zara, H&M, Gap and Levi’s manufacture and import clothes from Bangladesh.
ISPO Munich will be held from January 28 to 31, 2018. More than 2,700 exhibitors will present latest trends and innovations in the sports business. There is 15 per cent more requests for spaces in comparison to last year’s event. Under the umbrella of snow sports, manufacturers will present the whole winter sports product spectrum: from skiing, free skiing and snowboarding, to snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and tobogganing. The event will once again showcase the variety of winter sports.
To accommodate increased interest, the hall layout has been expanded in reflection of current trends in the sports business. Visitors will find everything relating to trends in hardware, clothing and accessories in the snow sports segment. An outdoor area is being launched. Visitors will find trends and new innovations in mountain climbing, climbing, ice climbing, bouldering, trail running, camping and water sports.
In 2017, the trade fair featured some trends that will be present in the industry in the future – like virtual reality glasses for the emotional buying experience or sports devices that can be controlled via apps. In 2018, industry representatives will once again exhibit what they will be offering customers and athletes in the future. Digital concepts will be displayed--RFID in functional clothing, wi-fi and wearables, and smart products to support sports activities.
Partnership for Cleaner Textile (PaCT) is a project in Bangladesh that advises garment factories to adopt modern technologies and reduce water and energy consumption. The project has been run since 2013 by the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Now, IFC plans to spend $7 million for implementing the second phase of the program. The first one was implemented in 215 factories at a cost of $11 million.
In its first phase, PaCT helped save 21.6 billion liters of water. It also saved 2.5 million megawatt hours of energy per year. During the second phase, IFC is targeting to save 32 million cubic liters of water annually and 3.8 million megawatt hours of electricity in 250 weaving, spinning, wet dyeing and finishing factories. It also aims at annually reducing greenhouse gas emissions, wastewater discharge and chemical use.
The other benefits of the program include better productivity, investments with higher returns and a cleaner environment for the community. Despite having one of the lowest per capita carbon dioxide emissions, Bangladesh has stepped up its environmental sustainability initiatives. At present, Bangladesh has 67 green garment factories and 280 more are in the pipeline. PaCT is the largest textile-based resource efficiency program in the world.
