Welspun India’s Q2 margins have been impacted by almost three per cent due to the depreciating rupee against the dollar. The textile firm has taken a hit by around Rs 37 crores due to currency fluctuation and expects margins will continue to shrink by an almost similar figure over the next few quarters.

While the exchange rate has had its impact, the company had various other one-off expenses that added pressure on the business. Welspun reported a 18.7 per cent on-year growth in profit after tax at Rs 114.8 crores for the July-September quarter of this fiscal. The textile firm sees positive growth momentum in volumes and is confident of achieving its annual guidance for revenues and profits. Welspun continues to pursue its differentiation strategy based on branding, innovation, sustainability and its patented traceability solution.

The company is seeing substantial growth in e-commerce and has developed a few products for the online marketplace as well. Capacity utilisation has gone up from 80 per cent clocked in the previous financial year. The plan is to invest Rs 900 crores as a part of capital expenditure. Capital has been set aside for a new flooring unit in Telangana.

Vietnam’s garments exports has been growing steadily in the past 10 years to Europe and North America. Early warnings at the beginning of 2017 suggested US withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership would narrow the pathway for garments from Vietnam. After struggling for the first six months, garment companies scored a record high of exports to the US toward the end of the year. Garments topped the export list in 2017 and give more hope for the country’s export prospects in the coming year.

Vietnam’s traditional garment destinations are: Asean, Eastern Europe, the EU, Japan and South Korea. Vietnam’s fashion industry has been growing, developing the energy to let designers leap and flourish. If a decade ago, Vietnamese consumers preferred fast fashion imported from China, now they tend to turn to domestic products.

However, garment companies have not been able to establish a firm foothold in the country. Export-oriented companies who want to set up sales boutiques have to deal with PR, marketing campaigns and after sales service.

Another reason contributing to the less secure production output is the material resources. Domestic fabric production makes only 2.3 billion meters a year. Since the industry requires 8.7 billion meters to function, the balance has to come from imports.

Zimbabwe is seeking to double cotton production in forthcoming summer cropping season amid growing demand for the country’s produce on the international market. According to the international market ratings, Zimbabwe cotton is the third best cotton in the world. The crop has the potential to generate foreign currency.

The government has already started distributing cotton inputs ahead of the summer cropping season to ensure that farmers are not inconvenienced. It has also put in place mechanisms to ensure proper grading so that farmers who produce high quality cotton are not prejudiced. Last year cotton farmers delivered more than 75 000 tonnes of cotton to merchants compared to 138 000 tonnes delivered this year.

More than 300 000 farmers and approximately one million people rely on cotton farming in Zimbabwe. Midlands’ cotton farmers alone have so far this year delivered more than 70 000 tonnes to cotton merchants.

Indonesian workers have accused Uniqlo of exploiting them. Around 2,000 workers were made redundant when the factory shut in 2015. The workers blame the factory’s closure on Uniqlo’s decision to stop giving it orders, citing quality issues and delivery delays. They are owed about US$5.5 million in unpaid wages and severance payments and want Uniqlo to be held responsible. The company also didn’t fulfill its responsibility in protecting workers from union busting, illegal dismissals, and overtime work without pay. It had not taken necessary and simple steps to conduct due diligence before it stopped placing orders.

While Uniqlo was not the workers’ direct employer, the CCC’s East Asia campaigner Johnson Yeung Ching-yin said the company was still responsible because its dealings with the factory had led to the workers being overstressed, and its decision to discontinue business with the factory led to its closure.

After the factory’s closure, the workers occupied its premises, sleeping there for 18 months. But the banks, which were the factory’s creditors, eventually seized its assets and sold them.

Denim is getting to be one part rebellious teen and one part sensible dad. Wacky denim trend is not about to implode anytime soon, feel Denim Dudes founder Amy Leverton and contributor Sam Trotman. New factors like the emerging weed industry in the United States and nostalgia for Y2K are adding their own unique flavor to the table.

Sharing their Spring/Summer 2020 vision at Kingpins Amsterdam the duo said denim is oversized and layered with technical fabrics and silhouettes from the athleisure world. Practical zips and pockets, coatings and super-light-weight fabrics like nylon are among the key ingredients. Camouflage and ikat prints offer an outdoor feel. Brands can recreate these dye effects through laser printing for a more sustainable solution. The story’s color palette—soft indigos, natural indigos and natural vegetable shades—are well-suited for brands’ eco stories as well.

The overall earthy feel is enhanced with up cycled fabric remnants, Baja surfaces, textured weaves, patchwork leather, homespun quilting and deadstock fabrics. Frayed and undone finishes give a lived-in feel to new pieces. Based on last season’s Millennium Blues story, Leverton explained Ironic Oughties as the more ironic and cheesy offshoot that’s being led by youth-driven brands.

The story’s holistic side is expressed through the use of natural fibers and yarns, slow-made fashion and boutique dressing, while upsized silhouettes, refined fabrics, high-end finishing, soft layers and unstructured looks encapsulate the theme’s utility-meets-lounge styling. Draping, off-the-shoulder and conceptual cutouts elevate denim. Workwear details and A-line silhouettes add structure. Oversized twills, linen, summer blanket materials with a handloom look, feminine quilting and patchwork jacquard add texture and visual interest.

Indeed, bBrands and retailers are on board with the idea of sustainability. Many are setting targets to green their supply chains. However, the committed may still be too few and their commitments still too small. Brands are thinking about sustainability but because of the price sensitivity, they are also concerned whether their customers understand about sustainability versus the price. Brands that haven’t woven sustainability into the fabric of what they do are finding themselves hard-pressed to get consumers to pay up for a more eco-friendly product.

For example, Geetanjali Woollens which has been recycling post-consumer clothing for 40 years. The company gathers post-consumer apparel from waste collectors in the US, Europe, Australia and Japan, sorts it by fiber composition, then sorts it again by color. Each color gets shredded into fiber, spun into yarn and finds its way into sweaters, accessories, beanies and socks—each produced without dyes and chemicals, and substantially less water.

Brands can make the product but what if they are not able to sell it? Geetanjali finds retailers take in just a fraction of the nearly 25,000 kg of clothing Geetanjali recycles every day. This is not sustainable because as a factory Geetanjali has workers to pay, bills to pay.

Pakistan is opting for import substitution as a way to add value to its textile chain. Growth of the textile sector is directly linked to the availability of cotton which is consumed by at least 16 sub sectors starting with cotton ginning up to the manufacturing of fashion garments.

Small and medium enterprises are being encouraged to switch over to latest technologies so that their overall share in Pakistan’s exports can be enhanced. The country is working on upgrading its supply chain and improving productivity. There is room for further expansion of the textile sector with improvement in the law and order and energy situations. In order to promote value addition and exports, the regulatory duty on import of yarn and other raw materials has been significantly decreased.

The regulatory duty has been revised only on 90 items whereas the same has been increased on 100 luxury items. Further, rebate will also be paid with the export proceeds electronically in order to facilitate the exporters. The process of validating licenses – for export-oriented units and manufacturing bonds – will be soon automated. The audit will also be done automatically by the system. Pakistan’s textile exports constitute a major portion of the country’s overall exports.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says, to prevent a climate catastrophe, carbon consumption must be radically reduced worldwide. Therefore, industry, government and social enterprises in New Zealand have collaborated to launch the Textile Reuse Programme - an initiative to combat clothing consumption, waste and the subsequent climate impact.

Textile Reuse Programme figures reveal, clothing consumption has reached 100 billion units annually, with only one per cent of this being recycled. Also, along with the environmental implications of our throwaway culture, waste material represents a loss of $100 billion per annum. To address this mounting issue, the collaboration hopes to leverage the latest in disruptive technologies in order to gradually transition the wider industry into implementing more sustainable manufacturing and disposal methods.

Partners include: Alsco New Zealand, Wellington City Council, Wellington Zoo, Barkers Menswear and Fonterra. The initiative will be led by the sustainable textile R&D company, The Formary.

New York is currently the world’s best city for conventional retailers. Los Angeles takes the runner-up spot, while Singapore completes the podium at the third place. New York offers an ideal location based on its socio-economic, demographic and political factors, as well as its tourist appeal and the quality of its infrastructure.

Demographics, the economy, politics, the socio-economic landscape, tourism, retail, fashion and trendiness represent the eight major areas analysed to give a score to these urban areas, underpinned by criteria such as population, wealth, GDP growth, minimum wage, tax barriers, airport passenger traffic, tourist figures and the entrepreneurial climate.

The ranking has been done by Hot Retail Cities whose mission is to help fashion companies better understand where they operate and where they can set up shop going forward. The report provides an analysis detailing the retail conditions in 100 cities around the globe. Based on these characteristics, the report measures each city’s degree of merit for conventional retailers.

The hope is that this tool, which offers great insight into all aspects and trends to identify the hottest retail cities, will become a key driver over time to optimise each city’s retailing conditions.

Retailers are faced with the challenge of serving a global market with local tastes. Their success in ultimately establishing a footprint within a certain market will depend on how well they analyse the local landscape.

Cotton arrivals declined significantly in Maharashtra, the second-largest producer of the fibre crop, forcing ginning mills to operate at less than 30 per cent capacity as farmers held back stocks on expectations prices will rise. The daily all-India cotton arrivals are currently at 75,000 bales to 80,000 bales of 170 kg each. Half of the cotton comes from Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan, while the remainder is from central and south India. In Maharashtra, cotton arrivals have started from Khandesh region, while supplies from Marathwada and Vidarbha are yet to pick up.

Farmers are waiting for prices to rise to offload stocks, while ginners are going slow on purchases, expecting rates to cool once the prices of cotton seed soften with growing arrivals. Raw cotton prices have increased to Rs 5,850/ quintal in Maharashtra – more than the MSP prices for medium staple and long staple cotton of Rs 5,150/quintal and Rs 5,450/quintal, respectively.