Gang Sun has won the Harold C. Chapin Award for 2021.

The Chapin award was established in 1958 in honor of Harold C. Chapin, professor of chemistry at Lowell Textile School, who served as national secretary of the American Association of Textile Chemists and Colorists (AATCC) for nearly 25 years.

Sun is a professor in the department of biological and agricultural engineering at the University of California, Davis. He received his BS and MS degrees in materials science and fiber engineering at Donghua University. Ten years after this, he completed his PhD in chemistry at Auburn University, and in 1995 began his career as an assistant professor at the University of California, Davis. Sun has published more than 320 peer reviewed articles, co-written 24 book chapters; and has 18 US patents, with five provisional patent applications pending.

A member of AATCC since 1995, Sun has been very involved with AATCC publications and has authored numerous peer reviewed papers. In 2017, Sun joined the AATCC publications committee. He has been a part of AATCC Journal of Research since its inception in 2014, first as a dedicated associate editor and as the editor in chief since 2019. Under his leadership, journal submissions increased and have been cited frequently, strengthening the value and rank of the journal among textile research publications.

Filatex Fashions is acquiring a 51 per cent stake in Isabella. Isabella is a Sri Lankan apparel manufacturer.

Isabella, for more than 25 years, has been manufacturing and supplying socks and tights to clients in Germany, France, Canada and the Czech Republic. It is the second largest manufacturer of socks and tights in South Asia, with a capacity of 48 million pairs.Isabella, which has a workforce of over 2,000 people and boasts of a backward integrated manufacturing process, produces a wide variety of socks using various yarns made from cotton, bamboo, viscose and acrylic.

Filatex Fashions is a socks maker and has a plant in Hyderabad, India with a capacity to make seven million socks. Filatex is augmenting the yarn manufacturing and polymerisation capacity of its plants in Dadra and Dahej from .033 million MT per annum to 3.65 lakh MT by next year.The polyester yarn manufacturer, based in New Delhi, will also set up a captive power plant to reduce energy costs. The company, which exports manmade yarn to 34 countries, also has in the pipeline a fabric plant to make fabrics from the yarn it produces. Its yarn is used in the manufacture of carpets, rugs, tapes, ribbons and zippers.

MarediModa will be held in Cannes, November 8 to 10, 2022.

More than 250 collections of beachwear, underwear, athleisure and accessories fabrics for summer 2024 will be previewed by the most qualified European companies.

Lycra will present the latest innovations in innovation and sustainability. The Link competition for young fashion designers returns, with its integral formula and a fashion show event and the presence of the nine finalists selected from the best European fashion design schools.Ample space will also be devoted to the Trend Forum and exclusive themes for spring/summer 2024.

The event is celebrating 20 years. A small group of textile entrepreneurs glimpsed the possibility of thinking of a new, self-managed fair with an unusual formula, more welcoming and confidential, that could protect and promote the European fabric of controlled origin, without compromise.

Gradually, this choice has proved increasingly rewarding, especially in recent years, when the demand for reliable and sustainable suppliers at every stage of the supply chain is experiencing vertical growth. More and more brands are returning to choose European fabric not only for creativity, quality and innovation but also for easier logistics and tailor-made design, unthinkable elsewhere. Today MarediModa celebrates an important anniversary with the historical companies, with many new entries and excellent returns.

The Australian apparel retail market is growing by three per cent a year. Volumes in the apparel market are expected to amount to 1,715.60 million pieces by 2027, and the average volume per person in Australian apparel market is expected to amount to over 65 pieces by 2026. Currently that stands at nearly 57 pieces.

In 2021, Australia’s apparel imports were valued at US $ 7.40 billion. The market’s largest segment is women’s apparel. Trousers and shorts were the dominant category in Australia’s total apparel imports during the first half of 2022. They had a 21 per cent share and were followed by jerseys with a 15 per cent share and shirts with a nine per cent share. These three products together accounted for more than 45 per cent of total apparel imports by Australia.

Import of other products were T-shirts (nine per cent), dresses (eight per cent), innerwear (eight per cent), jackets and blazers (five per cent), nightwear (two per cent), baby wear (two per cent) and socks (two per cent).

Australia also exports textiles, most of which are unprocessed commodities. These items are then sold back to the industry from European luxury brands which are based in Italy, France, or Great Britain.

The value of merchandise returned to retailers in 2021 was up 78 per cent compared to that in 2020.So says retail tech company Narvar. Apparel and footwear account for 46 per cent of returns.

Poor fit remains the top reason for returns. Consumers are increasingly adopting third-party drop-off locations. Third-party drop-off adoption has grown steadily for four years now, from 11 per cent in 2019 to 19 per cent in 2022, reflecting shopper demand for a wider range of convenient return methods.

Shoppers are willing to pay for added convenience such as scheduled home pickup when returning items but less than half of retailers currently charge any kind of return shipping or restocking fee. Shoppers are benefiting from retailers’ generous return policies. Return windows are getting longer, refunds are happening faster, and technology is making returns easier than ever before—boosting customer satisfaction. There is a significant opportunity here for retailers to increase loyalty and retain revenue by offering differentiated and personalized return policies that meet different customers’ needs.

Categories with the highest return rates are similar to 2020 metrics: auto parts (19 per cent), apparel (12 per cent) and home improvement and housewares (tied at 11 per cent).

The Apparel Export Promotion Council (AEPC) has launched a project to evaluate the existing status of the Indian garment industry, encourage wider reach of beneficial measures among medium and small units, hand hold units with demonstrations and solutions, enhance the brand visibility of sustainable companies on a global platform, and brainstorm the necessary policy focus.

Global garment production is forecasted to increase by 63 per cent by 2030. This will bring with it an ever-growing global concern on the detrimental impact that the fashion industry brings. Further, with growing consumer awareness on sustainability and the gaps in global markets, there is a need for the Indian apparel industry to take steps for sustainability.

The industry has to face severe competition from Bangladesh and Vietnam and the emerging economies of Cambodia, Myanmar and even Africa. But these are also the times for innovating in design, structuring, promotions and supply chain efficiencies.

The global garment export industry is changing and in order to remain competitive the Indian garment Industry will have to develop capabilities to tackle both larger volume orders and manage rapid turnarounds with short lead times for diverse fashion garments. The industry will have to develop capabilities to offer better value propositions to buyers in terms of designs and products that align with their market needs.

The textile dyes market is growing by six per cent a year. Rapidly evolving fashion trends are prompting manufacturers to include new color combinations and designs, pivoting sales.The market posted impressive gains over the last five years.

Manufacturers are expected to primarily focus on Asian markets, with prominent countries such as India and China emerging as lucrative growth hubs.Prominent manufacturers are increasingly capitalizing on organic textile dyes, attributed to rising concerns over the detrimental impacts of using synthetic chemicals, furthering expansion prospects.

Demand for direct textile dyes is expected to remain high. Reactive textile dyes are experiencing fast growth. Dyes for viscose fibers are expected to have a compound annual growth rate of around six per cent. Polyester textile dyes are expanding impressively.

The US is likely to register heightened textile dye sales. India, South Korea, Australia and are generating huge revenues across the textile dyes landscape. India’s textiles industry contributes seven per cent to industry output. China’s chemical fiber production exceeds 50 million tons, comprising over 66 per cent of global production. Such trends are motivating prominent players to increase their foray across these markets.

Some key textile dye manufacturers are Huntsman, Atul, DyStar, Colorant, Kiri, Jay Chemical, Organic Dyes and Pigments and Archroma.

Global Fashion Summit was held in Singapore, November 3, 2022.

It assembled over 250 stakeholders representing manufacturers, garment workers, retailers, brands, suppliers, NGOs, policy, and innovators and built on dialogues from the June edition in Copenhagen and gathered leaders from across the entire value chain to elevate diverse voices and foster alliances within the fashion industry and beyond to drive sustainable impact.

The edition facilitated conversations with manufacturer and supply chain voices to discuss crucial challenges and opportunities around working collaboratively with brands on equal terms. The program featured bold panels, case studies, masterclasses and leadership roundtables reflecting on topics including data scarcity, better wage systems, community and circularity, connecting the EU textiles strategy with the value chain and energy transformation.

Global Fashion Summit was held outside of Copenhagen for the first time in its 13-year history. The summit was presented by Global Fashion Agenda, which is a non-profit organisation that fosters industry collaboration on sustainability in fashion to accelerate impact. With the vision of a net positive fashion industry, it drives action by mobilising, inspiring, influencing and educating all stakeholders. The organisation has been leading the movement since 2009.

Global Fashion Agenda will build upon summit discussions to reflect on how the industry can accurately measure and communicate sustainability performance.

Pakistan targets to be net zero carbon by 2050. The Net Zero Pakistan program aims at forming a national coalition of pioneering companies, public institutions, and sectoral experts.

This year, 2022, Pakistan had devastating climate related floods which resulted in damage to Pakistan’s cotton crop. How far private industry in Pakistan is willing to commit to the idea of netzero is unknown. About 30 per cent of Pakistan’s textile production capacity for exports has been hampered because of cotton and energy shortages. Pakistan’s textile sector, which exports about 60 per cent of its production, is also facing poor demand in the domestic market due to fragile economic conditions.

As of now Pakistan emits just one per cent of global carbon emissions but faces the risk of being removed from the global supplychain as a result of its carbon footprint. When the whole world moves towards net zero, Pakistan doesn’t want to be left behind in the global supplychain. Cotton crops are being lost as a result of climate devastation.

For Pakistan, the spend is in the range of billions of dollars and now the step is about finding solutions or ideas that can help the country mobilise that kind of capital and avoid future disasters.

China is the top supplier of apparel to the Middle East. During January 2022 to June 2022, China ranked first on the suppliers’ list followed by Bangladesh, Turkey, Italy and India. Supplies from the top five countries to the region surged in the first six months of 2022 over the same period of the previous year.

Imports from China grew by 31 per cent from January 2022 to June 2022 on a yearly basis, compared to the mild growth of 0.88 per cent in January 2021 to June 2021. Middle East’s apparel imports from Bangladesh rose to 62 per cent in the first half of this year from 0.46 per cent during the same period of last year. The share of Bangladesh in the total imports by Middle East in the first half of this year was 11 per cent. The share of Turkey, Italy and India stood at nine per cent, six per cent and five per cent respectively. Morocco, Vietnam, Georgia, Spain, and Cambodia take the next five spots on the list of the top ten apparel supplier countries to the Middle East.

Asia-Pacific was the largest sourcing region for the Middle East with imports amounting to 62 per cent of total imports. The Asia-Pacific region supplies about two-thirds of the total apparel imported by the Middle East.