After PETA Asia’s investigation of the mohair industry revealed abuse and exploitation of angora goats, Lacoste has decided to totally ban the material. PETA’s first-of-its-kind video exposé of angora goat farms in South Africa, the world’s top mohair producer, has pulled back the curtain on the violent industry, showing workers dragging, roughly handling, throwing around, mutilating, and even cutting the throats of fully conscious goats, some of whom cried out.

Lacoste joins an ever-growing list of brands/retailers including ASOS, Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, H&M, and, most recently, Notonthehighstreet – that have made this compassionate move. To date, over 330 brands have committed to a ban, proving that cruelty to animals is not in fashion. Famous for its crocodile logo and boasting 1,200 shops and 10,600 outlets spread across 120 countries, Lacoste had also previously committed to angora and fur bans.

India has exported close to 10 lakh bales of cotton so far to Bangladesh, Vietnam and Indonesia this kharif season. Total exports are likely to touch 65 lakh bales. So far this season, total cotton arrivals in India have been to the tune of 65 lakh bales against 70 lakh bales during the corresponding period last year.

Prices are expected to start rising once arrivals from the first picking are completed by the end of December. Mills also have been stocking up on cotton, anticipating a fall in supply in the not too distant future. The ginning industry continues to face shortage on weak arrivals. The daily requirement is around four lakh bales and barely two lakh bales are available on a daily basis. First pickings in Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Telangana are in the final stages. Ginners are facing problems because there is no parity and there are payments issues in addition to fears about the quality of cotton from next month.

The country’s production in 2019 is estimated at 348 lakh bales, down nearly five per cent from a year ago. Cotton prices are hovering around minimum support prices of Rs 5,150 per quintal for the medium staple variety and Rs 5,450 per quintal for the long staple variety.

India is the seventh largest wool producer in the world. The industry can broadly be divided into 10 major product categories: worsted yarn, woolen yarn, wool tops, fabrics, shoddy yarn, shoddy fabrics, blankets, knitwear, handmade carpets and machine made carpets.

In the organised sector are composite mills, combing units, worsted and non-worsted spinning units, knitwear and woven garment units, machine-made carpet manufacturing units. In the decentralised sector are hosiery and knitting units, powerloom units and independent dyeing and process houses.

Woolen handmade carpets contribute more than 70 per cent to total wool exports. The wool industry is concentrated in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat. Punjab accounts for about 35 per cent of wool production units, followed by Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

The US and the EU are key export destinations for Indian wool and wool-blended products. Indian exporters are however geographically diversifying their exports to other regions such as the Middle East, Latin America, south east Asia, and east Asia. Major buyers of Indian woolen yarn, fabrics and made ups are Italy, the UK, Japan, Korea, China and the US.

However, India has limited facilities to produce apparel grade wool, which makes it dependent on importing wool.

Fespa will be held in Germany, May 14 to 17, 2018. Fespa caters to the screen and digital wide format, textile printing and signage markets. More than 700 exhibitors are expected to showcase the latest technology and applications for screen and digital wide format, textile and garment print, printed interior décor, vehicle wrapping, packaging and non-printed signage.

Fespa will once again dedicate an entire hall to substrates. The show is proving increasingly popular with Aussie and Kiwi print and sign businesses. Print service providers and sign-makers are continually looking at new openings and ways to grow their businesses. The industry is powered by technology and media innovations, and an irrepressible entrepreneurial appetite to experiment with new applications and enter new markets.

Visitors will also benefit from a host of educational features reflecting Fespa’s commitment to investment in education and promoting best-practice, including popular regular features from previous events and fresh initiatives guided by market trends and visitor feedback.

The event is regarded as a key destination for print and signage businesses looking for tools to fulfil their ambitions, and for inspiration from real stories of business transformation.

The co-located Sign Expo will give sign-makers and brand owners a dedicated exhibition for non-printed signage, while offering printers the opportunity to explore opportunities in visual communications beyond print.

To facilitate the partnership between Indian and foreign buyers with manufacturers and traders, a four-day premier textile fair ‘Weaves’, with the theme: Global Connect for Weaving was inaugurated at Texvalle, Coimbatore. Organised jointly by the Confederation of India Industry (CII) and Texvalley, the buyer-seller meet ‘Weaves’ is expected to generate revenue of over Rs 800 crore. The theme of the event is Global Connect for Weaving’. It has attracted about 1,000 business visitors and over 250 exhibitors representing the textile industry ranging from fabrics to weaving machines.

The event was inaugurated by A Sakthivel, Vice-Chairman, Apparel Export Promotion Council and Regional Chairman, Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO), who noted that the state accounted for 60 per cent of yarn and fabric exports, and 85 per cent of knitwear exports. It provides 40 lakh jobs per year, 60 per cent of which are held by women employees. The state this year registered a 15 per cent decline in its exports. A coffee table book titled “Titans of Textiles” featuring 28 successful entrepreneurs in the textile sector was also released at the event.

In October, textile, clothing and footwear retail sales grew 1.1 per cent in Eurozone countries in comparison to the same month last year. This is in a way a recovery from September, when sales dropped 7.2 per cent.

So far this year, the only months that have been positive for the sector in the Eurozone was April, when retail sales went up 1.9 per cent, August with a growth of 1.6 per cent and now in October. Between May and July, the sector’s revenue fell, between 2.5 per cent and 2.3 per cent.

In the whole of the European Union, textile, clothing and footwear sales grew in October by 1.4 per cent in comparison to the same month last year. It was the fourth month in 2017 that the sector ended positively, as the business grew 0.1 per cent in January, 1.9 per cent in April and 1.6 per cent in May.

Despite the bounce back, textile was the sector which recovered the least during October. On the whole, retail sales registered a growth of 1.7 per cent in the Eurozone, whereas the European Union grew by 2.1 per cent.

The sector that grew the most during the tenth month of the year was that of computer equipment, followed by the alimentation and drinks sector, with a growth of 2.3 per cent.

Milan will host the next session of the Denim Première Vision trade show in June 2019 in Milan. The session will instead array its stands at the Superstudio Più venue in the via Tortona area in Milan, a regenerated industrial district which also has a reputation for innovation and energy.

Denim PV’s latest session opened in London on December 05, 2018 in London. The event is being staged at the Old Truman Brewery in the hip neighborhood of Shoreditch.

Cotton plays an important role in the Indian economy as the country's textile industry is predominantly cotton based. India is one of the largest producers as well as exporters of cotton yarn. Cotton yarn and fabric exports accounts for about 23 per cent of India’s total textile and apparel exports. During April-September 2018, exports of cotton yarn, cotton fabrics and cotton made-ups grew by 26.8 per cent year-on-year.

Various reputed foreign retailers and brands such as Carrefour, Gap, H&M, JC Penney, Levi Strauss, Macy's, Marks & Spencer, Metro, Nike, Reebok, Tommy Hilfiger and WaImart import Indian textile products. Gujarat, Maharashtra, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Punjab are the major cotton producers in India.

India’s textile industry is expected to reach 223 billion dollars by 2021. The Indian textile industry is looking to complete its transition in the wake of demonetisation and GST. Internal factors are improving, even as external factors are in favor of India. China is retreating from a large part of the textile value chain and that is expected to favor India.

On export front too, things are turning around. Exports of textile and apparel grew 38 per cent during October 2018 as compared to October 2017. Over the same period apparel exports grew at a whopping 54 per cent.

Apparel exporters in Bangladesh don’t think sharing seaports with India is a good idea. They feel this will add to congestion. In Bangladesh, it takes about 45 days for execution of an export order, which is 10 to 12 days in China. Due to congestion at the ports, sometimes garment exporters have to ship goods by air, which costs a huge amount of money. Sometimes manufacturers have to offer a discount on price due to delay in shipment.

Bangladesh may allow India to use the Chattogram and Mongla seaports for transporting goods to and from its land-locked Northeastern states. This agreement is effective for five years with a provision of automatic renewal for another five years. But either country could pull out from the deal with a six-month notice.

There is a shortage of required equipment at Bangladesh’s principal port to even handle the current export-import shipment. Bangladesh’s export earnings from the apparel sector in the last fiscal year were up by 8.76 per cent. In the first four months of the current fiscal year, Bangladesh exports earnings saw a sharp rise by over 20 per cent.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s overall export earnings are up by about 5.8 per cent.

The second edition of the Partnership for Clean Textile (PaCT II) campaign has concluded its first year with seven organisations joining it along with the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA). PaCT II, International Finance Corporation's multi-stakeholder partnership to drive sustainability in Bangladesh's textile sector, aims to work with more than 200 factories to adopt state-of-the-art efficiency and cleaner production practices to reduce water, energy, and chemical use across the textile value chain.

Five apparel companies, VF Corp, PUMA, Levi Strauss & Co, TESCO and GAP and two technology providers Jeanologia and Omera Solar have joined the campaign. Started in January 2018, with support from the governments of Denmark, Australia and the Netherlands, the PaCT II seeks to save 10.9 billion litres of water and 1.3 million megawatt hours of energy every year. In the process, there will be 241,160 tonnes of green-house gases and 10,000 tonne of chemical use avoided every year.

The successful first edition of the PaCT, which ran from 2013 to 2017, helped save 21.6 billion litres of water every year, which is the average annual water use for 840,000 people in Bangladesh.